


Written on Her Back

by projectHYPOCRISY



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bittersweet, F/M, Feels, Inspired by Music, Lucid Dreaming, Male-Female Friendship, Memories, Mental Coercion, Minor Canonical Character(s), Multi, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, POV Original Character, Psychological Drama, Psychological Horror, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2318297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectHYPOCRISY/pseuds/projectHYPOCRISY
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena is a fugitive, running from Shin Ra's grasp. Along with her sister, Kathelyn and their not-so trusted bodyguard Jofrey, they embark on a journey neither bargained for, a journey of discovery and destruction. A journey that will end in the bowels of Gaia itself. In the end, what can we say for the scars we carry on our backs?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Hello Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, mes amis! 
> 
> This is my little fanfic that I started writing on FFnet and decided to do a full re-write here. The story mainly follows Helena after she escapes a Shin Ra mental institution and her disturbing descent into madness as a certain cloaked figure haunts her dreams. I am really open to any recommendations as I am new to ao3.
> 
> With that being said, welcome to ----(dramatic pause for effect)--------(is it working yet?)-------- Written on her Back

**Prologue**

**Hello, Darkness**

It is dark. And cold. I am alone.

I can't remember much, only that it had been some time since I moved. How long, I wasn't sure. I dreamt of the sound of some distant waves crashing ashore, the warm crackling of long field grass as they would wave side to side, the perfect melody. But that all seemed so far from me, like I lost it long ago in some fire, a fire that claimed the life I once knew. Now I was here. In a bed that wasn't mine, in a room I did not ask for, with drugs in my veins that I did not cocktail. I can’t speak to oppose them. I can’t move to avoid them. So I lay down, staring at the ceiling, praying that I’ll forget today too.

I will, however, never forget the beautiful angel that visited me one night, what seemed like years but felt like a mere moment ago. His long hair spun from moonlight, moonlight that would trickle through the suffocating clouds of smog and leak into my lonely room through the one barred window. His hair washed over me as he moved closer to my bedside, forgiving me for everything I had done. I prayed to him, under my sullen breath, that I may leave this hell, if only I were forgiven enough to be granted such a wish. “Soon,” he promised as a cool hand stoked my cheek, the sensation dulled by a cool veil of medication, “I will come for you.” I took that promise to the grave as I closed my eyes and rode that high into the night. Behind my eyelids, I could feel him baring down on me with his frigid green eyes, unmoving and unrelenting, as he pondered on my existence. “How shameful,” he whispered into my ear, a tickling sensation spreading through my face as his hair softly landed on my cheeks and forehead, “but don’t worry: it’ll all end.”

I suddenly woke. But he was not there. It was morning time, signalled by the blaring lights in the hallway and the slight change in cloud density in the sky. I could lift my head high enough to see the small window in the door set alight by the hissing tungsten lights. I rolled my head to the side, seeing my intravenous digging deep into my skin. A sudden worry took hold and gripped my heart in a flurry; I would die here. No one would come for me. My angel would rather watch me die out of some demented need to punish me, would rather watch as I squirmed, as I struggled for my last hope to escape. I feared the loneliness. I feared that it would finally claim me.

I closed my eyes again as the nurse came into the room, the clicking of her heels echoed into my mind. I’m scared. I want to go home. I feigned sleep, waiting for a sting or a pinch somewhere along my arm but nothing came. I opened my eyes, weary of what may rest beyond my eyelids. Surprisingly, the gentle nurse was replaced by a face that struck a chord deep inside my wounds. I tried placing the face to a concrete memory but somehow it eluded me.

“Who are you?”

The woman’s face contorted. “Helena, it’s me, Kathelyn.”

“Kathelyn,” I repeated, the name leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I let it linger, still feeling around for some memory of this woman. Sudden and sharp, it came to me, opening the floodgates of rage and disappointment. “Get out,” I managed to slur.

“Helena, I’m coming to take you out of here. I’m not leaving without you.”

“Funny,” I chuckled, “I would have never expected for you to say that.”

“Helena, please,” her hands took out the needle and then swept across my face, “punish me later.”

She helped me up, adjusting the pillow up my back, offering me some comfort as I familiarized myself to this upright position. She fished in her lab coat for a slender syringe. She poked the thick meat of my upper arm. I could not retract myself and so allowed for her to pump me with whatever concoction the syringe carried. She assured me it was only an anti-overdose shot, something that I clearly needed. They were prepared to overdose me so long as I remained a quiet subject to Hojo’s warped imagination. I felt the effects in seconds, rolling over and hacking out whatever they managed to feed me through a tube. I watched her in the corner of my eye as she anxiously watched out the door. When she saw some colour in my skin, she helped me into a wheelchair. She placed a mouth guard over my ears and then pulled it over my mouth. She hoped no one would look twice.

Surprisingly, no one did. Or rather, there was hardly anyone to look twice. I asked where everyone had gone; no nurses on the floor, no doctors at their station and only some guards on the main floor. “Shinra was killed,” she spoke truthfully, “everyone's at home, riding out the state of emergency.”

I snorted. Shinra, dead? How amusing. So, the turmoil spurred her to finally come for me. I was amazed that she came at all. I was amazed I was being taken out of my own personal hell. Perhaps what my angel said, I now understood was a figment of my broken mind, was the truth. I would live. I would escape. I would be victorious for once in my pitiful life. I just never thought I would be in the hands of my sister, the one person I bore so much resentment towards. Looking at her I could not imagine her as the young girl who shared with me the death of our parents, all I could see was a bitter disappointment and the feeling of abandonment.

“I hate you,” I muttered, still foggy from the medication. I guess she didn't hear me as she continued to push me through the underground parking lot and helped me in the back of a car. Or maybe she didn’t really care to respond, I wasn't sure of which.

The car started. “Where are you taking me?” Might as well ask.

“Wherever you would like to go,” she chimed, “you're free now.”

I laughed. “I doubt it. We're never really free, are we?”


	2. Chapter One - Ghosts are Waiting for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena is a fugitive, running away from Shin Ra's grasp. Along with her sister, Kathelyn and their not-so trusted bodyguard Jofrey, they embark on a journey neither bargained for, a journey of discovery and destruction. A journey that will end in the bowels of Gaia itself. In the end, what can we say for the scars we carry on our backs?
> 
> Chapter Summary: Helena, after narrowly escaping the clutches of Shin Ra, decides to live the rest of her life out in Kalm. Her sister, distraught by guilt, accepts her sister's wishes. 
> 
> Warning: Swearing.

**Chapter One**

**Ghosts are Waiting for You**

_“I've got quite a vivid imagination and I'm easily overwhelmed by sensations and things that are beautiful or scary. I don't think I've ever seen a ghost - I think I'm probably haunted by my own ghosts than real ones.”_

_\--_ _Florence Welch_

I was sitting on the bed, knees drawn up and my back against the headboard. There was a quilt laid out on each bed, tying the room’s homey décor together. I remembered a bedroom that once looked similar, where two sisters, much younger than they were now, would push their beds with the quilts their mother had tirelessly sewn for them bellowed up to form a tent, and they would play with the dolls their father had bought for them with the money he earned working on the Junon docks. But I guess that was a long ways away. I was quite tired and slightly delirious. I imagined the girls carefully dressing the dolls on the carpeted space in front of me, while my eyelids of their own volition would droop over my burning eyeballs, stinging as they slid down. I did not want to sleep, for I feared of what may wait for me when I would wake, but there was something tempting in the sound my body made as it slid down the headboard and into the warm covers.

My joints ached and swelled, making me look like a nubby little beast. My feet were swollen and blue as well. I laid in a hospital bed for far too long, grappling with my topsy-turvy sense of reality and consciousness. Only I had to live with the horror that plagued me for five long, disgusting years, as my sister did not question what occurred behind the hands of the infamous Dr. Hojo. I would rather not discuss the life I left behind. I would much rather believe that I had rid myself of the man employed by the dubious President Shinra. Yes, I will pretend like I have now escaped once and for all, living a life I think I would deserve as a human being. Yet, the more I thought, the more I realized how that in itself was a miracle as so many were entrapped by the war machine known as Shin Ra well before they knew of the life they deserved. I was simply one of the lucky ones, I assured myself. But then why did I not feel lucky?

I looked out to the window, partially covered by a tattered cloth of a curtain and in the distance could see what I assumed was Midgar, beyond the smoke and smog. I left Midgar, feat beyond all feats, to that I had to owe to luck. Thankfully, it was not a sad departure, as there was no time to cry over the decrepit structure but I felt as though I had to feel something as we stopped the car by the Sector 5 wire fence. Nothing could come to mind except the hissing noise in my mind begging for me not to stop as Kathe pulled up a small opening so I could crawl through. I was weak and hobbled around in the hospital clothing they had given me to wear, stripping me of any dignity, any sense of who I was in my past life. My sister offered a black tunic, something to wear as the cool evening air still hung low in the Midgar Midlands.

At first, we walked out into the green plains. Then we found a truck passing on the freeway. It was lonely walking out into the freeway with little indication of where we would go, but that truck offered us some hope that we were going the right way; for once, something was going right. Once we got on the back of that truck, the relief was nothing I had ever experienced. I lay limp next to my sister, her arm wrapped around my shoulders as if holding me down so that I would not float away. It was quite strange to feel her body next to mine, almost uncomfortable, but I allowed it as I hadn’t the strength to protest. We bounced around for a good hour before coming to a smooth dirt road and eventually a paved one. I watched as the sun rose over the flat hilltops and the cool night breeze was chased away to a warm stifling heat.

We reached Kalm by midday, sometime after I started to dry heave over the side of the truck. My sister unhooked my bra allowing some air into my lungs. But the heat... it was unbearable. For how long had I lived in an air conditioned room? We hobbled over to the inn, rented a room and pulled back the curtains. I laid in bed for what seemed like days but was only a couple of hours.

Time seemed to not be what it once was out here, in the real world. My sister was three feet taller, had crow's feet around her eyelids, had thick eczema patches around her knees and had a stoop, not noticeable to the eye but noticeable to the memory frozen in a time capsule. Yet, she could still hold her ground with dignity, something that I never saw her have before. She was no longer the child I knew. And nor was I. I had lost weight. Not much, but enough to lose a dress size and float about in my medical garments. There were pinpricks around my knuckles. My skin was gaunt. My eyes yellowed. But it didn't matter now. I was free.

My sister did not talk and allowed for the silence to run rampant. It was frightening and sometimes I wished she would talk just to stop the uneasy hollowness surrounding me. She watched as I grew more and more impatient, and decided to turn on the radio from time to time. It was nice to hear a voice, soothing as butter, telling me how hot it was in Midgar. She watched me from her seat across the room as I rocked my head to the music, mouthing the words, realization sinking in. We both knew she had done wrong but I didn’t want to talk about it for fear of the consequence. But she knew now that, more than ever by returning to Midgar she would not leave with the sister she once knew, only a faint reminder.

She sat up, finally gathering some courage to say something. I anxiously awaited the result. “I think we need to consider our future, Helena. They’ll be looking for us. Shin Ra will. And I doubt it will be on happy terms.”

I turned over to face her. “I’m not going anywhere, Kathe. I’m tired and sick. Even if we leave, where will we go? What will we do?” I leaned back into the headboard, my head rearing from the little effort I put in. I needed to sleep. “I just want to rest. I just want some time. That’s all. Can you just give me some time?”

“I...,” I could hear her voice crack before she cleared up and regained composure, “I guess. Whatever you want.”

She stood up to look out the window. It was starting to rain. The rain droplets seemed to fall like crystals, their melodic tinkling driving stakes in my ears. I threw my hands up to my ears. Two index pads dug deep into my canal as I cried for it to stop. Kathe came running, desperately unsure. She took me, a shivering mess, into her bare arms. She tried to smother my head into her warm chest, her loud beating heart drowning out the maddening sound of raindrops. She continued to rock me back and forth, begging me to stay with her. I decided to, for her sake. She sounded desperate and I was tired.

I think I passed out. I woke with a start. The small fire that Kathe had started to warm the small inn room was now nothing than embers now and she was in her own bed, sitting upright. She was alerted by my struggle with the sheets and called out to me, noting that she was very close.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked finally.

She smiled. Something was killing her. “I had a weird dream.”

“What about?”

She shook her head, as if still trying to shake off the night’s horror. “I dreamt about Gast. He had his daughter with him.”

“He was executed, wasn’t he? Treason or something?”

Her face viably soured. “Hojo. That fuck. That’s why, Helena, _that’s_ why we can’t stay here.”

“I know. I heard. Shinra has been telling everyone it was a removal of another parasite, but I know. It was Hojo.”

“He gets rid of his mistakes,” she said, quiet and simple like.

“I know,” I replied, “but I’m not going anywhere, Kathe. If he finds me, he finds me. I got my chance to live a minute in peace and I’m not about to ruin that opportunity by running.”

“I know,” she parroted, “but I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll find you dead somewhere. I guess that’s selfish, but I don’t want to be the one to bury another family member.”

“It isn’t selfish, Kathe. But you have to understand: you were the one who picked me out of there. Now you’ll have to deal with my one last wish.”

“What’s that, baby girl?” She asked. I don’t remember the last time anyone called me that.

“I want to live like nothing happened.”

She nodded, “alright, alright. You win.”

She walked up to the fire and placed another log from the modest pile left by the innkeeper. She stoked it a bit before being satisfied enough to return to bed. She wished me a goodnight, hoping that I would have nothing but good dreams. I did the same, unsure of what that brought us. I watched as she shrunk into her blankets and disappeared. I did the same, now convinced I was not back at the hospital after the fifth or sixth time trying to get comfortable in the overtly warm sheets, I finally drifted off to sleep. I assumed it would be a faceless slumber like the many nights before it.

Since I was placed in the ward, I lost the concept of a dream long ago. When I first felt the sweet warm embrace of medicated slumber it came and went as if I were both suspended in air and barreling down the freeway. It was trippy as fuck to realize days had gone by and everything meld into one blob of a memory with no dreams to break it up.

But tonight would not be one of those nights, I had told to myself as I slipped into a feverish scene, written straight from a horror novel. I remembered being able to calmly tell myself that it was simply a dream as I slipped further and further into my subconscious until I no longer could realize I was dreaming at all. I remembered looking around, taking in the hellish sights as I moved down a long narrow corridor. It had no windows nor lights but an eerie greenish glow permeated throughout, outlining smears of blood on the grey monotone walls and floors. I called out a simple hello, which made no logical sense but somehow it made sense here. My voice, being both foreign and similar to me, echoed down the seemingly endless hallway.

Suddenly I came to an opening, an opening that was even darker than the corridor I came from. Two masses could be seen down a stretch in the opening, their outlines drawn in green. I approached with caution, something deep down telling me not to go closer, to close my eyes and hide. But I knew there was something to be seen in the darkness. One mass began to move and I realized it wasn’t a mass at all but a man, his piercing green eyes slicing the thick darkness. Somehow I knew he was smiling. I looked over to the mass on the ground. Slowly it became clear: two bodies piled onto each other, both men I knew, both men I loved. I cried out, out of terror and anger: “what have you done?!”

And his simple reply was: “they were in the way.”

I shook myself awake, my head launched up from the pillow. Kathe snuck into my bed during the night and found a rude awakening herself as I knocked her awake. “What? What’s going on?” She stumbled on her words. I looked around once for good measure. I was awake. Or at least, I thought I was. I couldn’t be sure anymore, to be honest. As if realizing I was struggling, Kathe assured, “you’re okay. You’re awake. See,” she touched my arm, “awake.”

“Yes,” I affirmed to the morning sun, “awake.”

She stood up and got dressed. She announced that she would grab some breakfast for us, so that I could hide in the comfort of four walls. I was anxious at first, I didn’t want to be left alone. But then I thought, what was twenty more minutes in my life? I allowed the loneliness to seep in as I watched the door close and heard the lock turn, a click resonating in the empty room. It was dangerous to be alone. Every time I found myself alone, I found myself in harm’s way.

The fire died out some time ago and all that remained as a dusty reminder of the countless logs Kathe murdered. I surveyed the rest of the country style abode, a place that both comforted me and made my skin crawl. It was small and quaint, with its two little beds and its coloured quilts. I could see everything with almost crystal clarity now that the sun rose up over the fortress-like walls. The curtains were indeed pitiful as they did little to smother the hot rays. I decided, with a gusto, that I should go and pull the curtains back. I stood from the bed, my head swirled with dissatisfaction and I fell back onto the bed with a gooey thud. Even that hurt. But that did not stop me. I went up for another go at it, this time taking care, reading my body and its shrunken limits. It served me well as I was able to stand and then, hunched over, walk to the window. I pulled back the sheets, clouds of dust pillowing out and releasing Kalm from its dying grasp. It was so beautiful.

I collapsed onto the chair conveniently stationed by the window, the sight seemed as though it may be too much for me. It wasn’t that Kalm was at all a beautiful city nor was it the contrary; it was entirely ordinary. But it was in its ordinariness that I could appreciate where I had come from and where I was potentially heading. I grabbed hold onto the pendant on my neck unsure of what I was really thinking or what I should do with this new found freedom. Guilt struck me dumb and blind, and it took a place I could potentially call home, such an ordinary place, to remind me of what I cherished most in the world.

 

“But I don’t know what that even means,” I told myself, “you’re all dead. All of you. Why should I care for something long gone?”

 

“I don’t know,” a little voice, meek and afraid, came from the doorway. “Talking to yourself, Helena?”

 

It was Kathe, she had already returned with breakfast in a brown paper bag. I nodded, unsure of what to say to that. I was always one to talk to myself but rarely did I get caught in doing so. I guess Kathe was catching me in a really off year. One where I lost my job, my friends, my livelihood of any sort and now I was getting caught talking to myself. What bothered me the most about this very off year was how vulnerable I was and how little strength I had to hide it. I didn’t want to rely on my sister who suddenly waltz into my life unannounced and unwelcomed. A disturbing thought crept into my head more than once, telling me to go back, that a life in medicinal chains seemed more appealing that chaining myself to the one woman I could say I truly hated. A loaded statement but I was prepared to defend it.

 

She handed me a piece of warm doughy bread, a breakfast delicacy very common in Kalm. I accepted the gift of food, peeling off the crust and placing it back into the bag. She smiled as she watched me doing so, a habit I never could get rid of. In solidarity, she took the discarded crust and piled it into her mouth. I looked at her for a moment, our eyes locked. A sudden sensation washed over me, like the past twenty years never happened and as sisters we were sharing a very natural breakfast. But it came and went as she took a paper coffee cup and handed it to me. “I wasn’t sure what you took it in, so there’s some packets in the bag.”

 

It was quiet. So quiet I could hear myself slurp at my coffee which was driving me nuts. I tried, in larger gulps, to drink the liquid but it only resulting in louder sips. Kathe saw how desperately hypersensitive to the world I was, a condition she had hoped I would have grown out of in due time but she suspected was exacerbated by years of solitary confinement. I wanted to show her how wrong she was about me. I wanted to show her how little I needed her. But the more I tried, the more I faltered. The more I faltered, the more I realized I was the one who was wrong.

 

“They have this nice apartment for rent,” she spoke up finally, “it may be nice to go and check it out.”

 

“Maybe,” I replied. Was I having second thought already? Maybe I didn’t feel like I belonged and if I saw the little place I would change my mind.

 

“Are we going to talk about--?”

“What?” I interrupted

“Well,” she started, trying to gather up the words necessary, “all last night you were tossing. I figured it was the medication, so I climbed in, just to make sure everything was okay. But then you started to scream: don’t go, don’t go.”

“Did I?”

She nodded. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I don’t really remember,” I lied. With that, she returned to her coffee, staring at the lid as it approached her. She was sulking, it seemed. How childish. “I don’t remember the details,” I caved into her pouting lips, “but I can say that I was dreaming about old friends. Genesis and Angeal… they’re both gone now.”

“I know. I heard.”

“I miss them like I would a limb.” I laughed, “I feel so guilty that I’m here.”  

“Don’t. They wouldn’t want that. They would want you to be happy, here, in Kalm.”

“No, that’s where you are wrong. They wouldn’t want me to stay here and rot away until the day Hojo would find me. They would want me to fight.”

“What are you saying?” I could hear the faint flicker of hope in her tone.

“I’m saying that we should fuck the apartment and get the hell out of here.” I was determined suddenly to leave although I did imagine myself in a small apartment up by the fortress wall; closer to the ocean than I had been in a very long time. But this wasn’t the time. Perhaps there would never be a time. I was finally given the gift of freedom and I wasn’t about to squander it here for my own selfish desires. I would run until they grew tired of me, and then maybe, just maybe then I would be able to settle somewhere knowing I had done them all justice.

“Then we should leave soon.”

“There’s just one problem, we can’t go at this alone,” I revealed a very real truth I think Kathe realized the very moment she dragged a very sick sister out of Midgar. “I’m tired and have no strength, even before all of this. And I can’t burden you by having you solely responsible for the both of us.”

“It isn’t a burden,” she quipped.

“You can’t do this alone, Kathe.”

“So what do you expect for us to do? Hire a bodyguard? Oh no, no,” she protested as my face changed at the notion, “what are we going to tell them, hmm? About our _situation_? They’d would rather work with Shin Ra then against them. It would pay them better.”

“Nothing, bluntly put. And if they ask, we lie, simple.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“It will,” I pushed, “we have to make it work. If we want to win, we’ll need to be a step before everyone else.”

“Fine,” she sighed, “you’re right. When did you get to be so right?” We laughed, a short lighthearted laugh. A laugh people would make at a very sad reality: she would have never realized when I became so right because she was simply not there.

My sister put down her cup and went for the door where she deposited another bag. She grabbed it and brought it over to where we were sitting. “Look what I got,” she said. There were two bottles of hair dye and a pair of sheers. I smiled. She asked me which one I preferred. The blond seemed the most drastic.

 

We crowded the bathroom mirror, cutting our hair on a towel laid on the tiled floor. We were jovial suddenly. Laughing and nervously snipping away at each other's hair. I instructed her to give me bangs. I never had bangs before. She corrected me: "mom used to give you bangs all the time." I couldn’t remember that. I changed from a brunette to a blonde, which was a task itself: the dye came out orange twice. I amazed myself, looking the mirror, at the changed woman staring back. It startled me even to see Kathe, now a redhead, gingerly touching my shoulder as we gazed at our mutual reflections.

She had bought contact lenses, something I never used. I was always with my glasses. Probably something I should have left behind as I climbed the Shin Ra corporate ladder. I suddenly dawned brown eyes. Something I never thought I would ever have the experience of having. Suddenly, I was someone new, someone who had a new slate, a slate I would paint with my own intentions.

"Helena?" Her voice chirped. I was suddenly transported to a time and place where nothing seemed to matter in the world. Truly I was lost in time, unfocused by the confusing nature of what I was just experiencing for once in my life: freedom. There, on the bathroom floor were two children who sat side-by-side and a green glowing orb being exchanged between them. The girls giggled as they felt the warmth growing from the orb. The youngest looked up, a question forming on her lips.

I snapped up, cutting the conversation of these two remnants of my past. "Yup?" I answered, looking up at the mirror, looking at my sister looking at me. Again we stood there looking at each other, through our mirrored images, for some time. She smiled, placed a hand on my shoulder and said nothing more.

I didn't want her to talk of the past, I made that clear. I didn't want her to know how much I planned this day in my bed, every sleepless night, plotting a vicious onslaught of painful words and threating insults. I didn't want her to know how much hate was harbored here. I didn't want her to know what I had been through all because she refused to acknowledge me as her flesh, as her blood, as someone cut from the same cloth.

I pulled on a pair of jeans, something a little different than what I had grown accustomed to: a billowing pair of white linen slacks and a shirt that hung loose around my neck. It was refreshing. I slipped my pendant back into my shirt, gingerly avoid it knocking against my chest as a sign of respect to the memories of the ones that were left behind. I somehow managed to outlive them both. I looked into the full length mirror hanging behind the door, taking in the new being. I suddenly felt human again.

I walked out into the main room where my sister walked around the room, drilling over and over again her current predicament in her head.

“Don’t worry,” I called out to her, as she spiralled out into whatever world she found herself into, “there's a bar just a ways into the city.”

“There's a ton of miners out of work,” Kathe spoke up, “there's gotta be someone willing to help us out."

"Why are they out of work?"

"Monsters apparently overran the Mythril Mines."

I hissed in disappointment, “and you think we'll find someone who can protect us from said monsters?"

She shrugged. "Worth a try. Might find just what we're looking for.”

With that, we walked out into the warm afternoon sunlight. We asked where we would find the famed bar and found ourselves back into an alcove. We sat at the bar, studying the environment for potential candidates. It was a dank little bar and like Kathe had said, it was filled with miners, still in their miner’s garbs, drinking their woes away. It was sad to see them in such a state of affairs. I knew what it meant to have a livelihood torn away from your grasp. It shakes you to your very core. You can even forget what it means to live a life elsewise.

"You okay?" Kathe asked as she slid a drink over my way.

I nodded, stirring the grenadine at the bottom of my tequila sunrise. It was funny how I suddenly lost the appetite for alcohol and the elated feeling I got as a result. I would increasingly bet on the inebriations as an adolescent and young adult, hoping that I felt less of the dread that came with living such an emotionally-charged childhood. I looked over to my sister's drink: straight up whiskey. I didn't take her for a "straight up" person. Did she realize it was what our father would smell of, coming home after his binging days?

"I didn't know what to order for you," she revealed about my own drink, staring down her own drink, probably contemplating how she came to enjoy her own taste for hard liquor.

"It's perfect. I'm just not feeling well."

She nodded “I understand,” she spoke more to her drink than she did to me. “No,” she suddenly retracted, “I actually don’t understand.” She looked up; she didn’t understand but she knew. She knew of what had happened. Sitting on that damned truck she apologized for every wrongdoing she was responsible for up until the point I had had enough and told her to shut it. She knew of almost everything Shin Ra did. Whether that was a recent revelation or one she kept tabs on, I would leave that a mystery for the sake of my sanity.

“I get it, Kathe.” Despite everything, I knew she was trying. I knew she was trying to feel for me and make amends. That was enough.

I leaned into the bar as the bartender came around to pick up his tip, "We're looking for someone."

His eyebrow raised. "In particular?"

I shook my head. "A guide, of sorts."

He nodded, stroking his stubbly chin in contemplation. He looked around the quiet bar to find his target. He locked in, "he's usually around this time of the year... Ah, there he is." He pointed to a man the corner, his eyes raised to the television set in the opposite corner.

I took a deep breath and slid off the bar stool, Kathe following suit. He seemed harmless enough. A young man in his late twenties or perhaps early thirties. His skin was tanned and leathery in some patches across his face. But he seemed well kept: his thick beige hair pulled back and slicked, a faint mention of a part on the right side could be seen in the dim lighting. His eyes peered deeply into the television screen; his gaze unchanging as he saw explosions occurring in Midgar. Cold bastard, I thought, maybe just what we needed.

Kathe grabbed my arm, pulling me behind her. She approached the man before me, looked at him for a moment and spoke up, "are you a _guide_?"

The man didn't move his gaze from the television screen. "Not for little princesses."

Kathe sneered, "want the job or not, asshole."

The man laughed, taking his eyes off the screen to grace us with their attention. "Got money?"

I leaned into the conversation, flashing the brown envelope inside my coat: it was loaded with the cash Kathe managed to liquidate from my account before we made way for the border. He seemed somewhat interested, mildly associating the thickness of the envelope with a large wad of cash. "Okay," He said, "its 14,500 Gil upfront."

I shook my head, "its five thousand up front and you get the rest upon completion." Kathe peered over her shoulder, giving me a death stare. She wanted to handle this man herself. She didn't want me involved whatsoever. Guilt perhaps?

The man let a snicker slip through his cool exterior. "You drive a hard bargain. Do you even know where you're going?"

Kathe spoke up, "none of your business. We tell you where to go and you take us there."

"Boyfriend?" He quipped. Kathe didn't answer. "Nah,” he laughed, “you look like someone running from something. I’ve seen girls running from Don Corneo before. Good deal gone sour?”

“Fuck you,” she spat.

"It doesn't matter,” I interjected, “Are you up for it or not?"

He shrugged, "six thousand up front and another ten when we're done."

"Fine." Kathe fished around in my jacket and pulled out the envelope, counted six thousand and slapped it onto the table. "You just better hope you keep us safe."

The man looked at me and asked, "got an idea of where we're going?"

I looked to Kathe, hoping to interrupt her before she put her two cents in, "Costa del Sol."

The man nodded. "Fine, meet me at nine sharp. We’ll take a boat over, avoid the mines. Better be prepared. The deal doesn't included me holding your hands."

He stood up from his seat and slapping a bill from the cash we had just paid him. His calm cool seemed to evaporate as quickly as he left. The bar's bustle seemed to resume as soon as the door slammed shut. I had just realized that a great number of patrons saw our conversation as afternoon entertainment. No one, apparently, approached the man in the corner. Which seemed strange, he was quite handsome.

"Couldn't have picked a better place?" Kathe snarled.

I shrugged, "I have always wanted to go to the beach."

“Well, I guess we should hurry and pack then,” Kathe walked out first, somewhat flustered. She was literally called a whore, so I didn’t blame her much.

We started back into the tepid afternoon, Kathe bee lining it for the inn. I decided to take it more leisurely. I was uncertain of what the future held for me at this point of my life, so I wanted to take in some of the sights before I was dashed away to yet another exotic location. It was in my leisurely stroll that I heard a name I had not expected to hear and which startled me out of my daydreaming state.

“Sephiroth’s dead.”

“But that was definitely his sword.”

I snapped up, looking for the origin. There, two men stood talking. Sephiroth, I heard from one of the nurses whispering in my ear, that he died too. But from what it seemed, one man was convinced he had seen a silver-haired man with a sword that had an uncanny resemblance to the late General. But it was the other man that interested me. He carried a beast of a sword on his back. _“This sword represents my honor as a man.”_

My head swirled. What the hell was this? I suddenly could hear my very heart pounding vicariously, throbbing in my chest. They’re all dead. All of them. Yes they were claimed by their own sad dispositions. I took solace in that notion, for some strange reason. But now that it was being challenged I felt as though the very air was closing in around me and piercing glares, meant to strip me of every little comfort I held close. I was scared and alone.

“Helena?!”

“Kathe?” I was suddenly released.

“What the hell is going on? I walked into the inn and you weren’t behind me. Fucking scared me shitless!”

“I was,” I began, looking back to the two men but they were gone. I frantically searched around, looking for any trace of them but could not find either soul. “Did you see a blond-haired man anywhere?”

“What?” Kathe asked. “No… Helena, is everything okay with you?”

“Yeah.” It was probably the medication, I reassured myself. It would take time before I could distinguish reality and dreams; I just had to be patient. “I’m just tired.”

Kathe smiled, “I know, baby girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter!
> 
> Do let me know what you think. It has only been edited by myself, and as you can probably tell already, I'm not very good at that.
> 
> Best,  
> ~mesamis


	3. Chapter Two - The Wavelength Gently Grows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Summary: Helena is a fugitive, running away from Shin Ra's grasp. Along with her sister, Kathelyn and their not-so trusted bodyguard Jofrey, they embark on a journey neither bargained for, a journey of discovery and destruction. A journey that will end in the bowels of Gaia itself. In the end, what can we say for the scars we carry on our backs?
> 
> Chapter Summary: Helena and Kathe make their way to Costa del Sol. On the way, Helena battles some ghosts whilst getting to know her knew bodyguard.

**Chapter Two**

**The Wavelength Gentle Grows**

_“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”_

_\--Lewis B. Smedes_

We met the nameless guide at 9pm sharp, without delay despite our worry that we were packing far too light and then too heavy. Kathe was extremely anxious to get our journey started, though neither of planned much after Costa del Sol, but neither of us really cared so long as we were out of Shin Ra’s attentive reach. The guide explained that he had a boat docked out at sea and we needed to walk out from Kalm to the ocean. Kathe was silent the entire way, which I expected, seeing as she wanted to cautiously stalk out the man that would be leading us from here to there and possibly everywhere. She watched a step behind as I explained the situation to our guide, keeping him interested enough but without delving into the matter too much.

He was jovial enough for a man that stared death in the face just a few hours ago, and seemed unmoved by it. He was open enough to tell us his name: Jofrey. A fairly commonplace name from our neck of the woods: Junon. He was surprised enough when we told him where we were from. We did seem like pure city folk by this point, Kathe less so than me.  So, it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I explained that we were on a journey of self-discovery and would have much rather go at it with a third party. He took it for face value, not a hitch in his pace but feared he suspected more of us. Kathe was none too impressed and walked in a close diagonal to him, arm crossed over her chest. She was dissecting every word coming out of his mouth.

"You’re going to trip like that," he chuckled suggestively as he threw a glance over his shoulder. Kathe scoffed at the sentiment, dropping a couple of steps behind but refused to remove her arms from their defensive position.

The more I saw Kathe glare daggers at the man, I became interested in our bodyguard/guide. He was reserved but seemed friendly, despite our initial run-in; not cold-hearted at all. He offered little else in terms of personal details other than his name and hometown, despite Kathe's incessant pushing. I dared to join in, to delve into this strange man's past too but instead kept to myself, as we walked on. He seemed to respect that in me by not delving too deep, other than what was needed of him, despite his mutual lack of trust in Kathe. I knew that Kathe and I needed to think of a way to get Jofrey to trust us before we left Costa del Sol, or we would have to grovel around to find another guide.

"So, the beach, huh?" He wiggled his way between us, forming a chasm in any potential conspiracies. "You haven't been there, right?"

"No, not yet. I mean, I've seen the ocean plenty." I noticed he was looking at Kathe the entire time, so I answered his question for him, "I think Kathe has been to the beach, though."

She nodded solemnly. "Thought it would be the furthest thing from Midgar for the time being," she explained, “you know, because, anything is better than Midgar at this point.”

"Going to stay there indefinitely?"

I looked to Kathe who interrupted with a truthful reply: "we'll leave when we say we're ready."

“Fine,” he recoiled. “Where do _you_ want to go next?” He moved on towards me and I didn’t blame him. Jofrey's attempt to extrapolate information from us were consistently met with Kathe's blockheadedness. He sensed our group’s weakness rested on my shoulders and the mortar that bond us was Kathe. Kathe was unwilling to have Jofrey interact with me whatsoever but I refused to let myself be rescued for a second time around. I liked his smile and wanted to see if I could ease his trust issues. Kathe didn't seem to care if he left. If that were to occur, we would find someone else, she would say. What she didn't realize was that I had little money left to pay for said new guide and the likelihood of finding another guide, in the sunny vacationing hot spot, was very low. Most of its inhabitants wanted to stay there and the other people were most likely just vacationers who also wanted to stay there. We hit the Lifestream when we met Jofrey, and we needed to keep him for as long as we could.

There was a lengthy silence as Jofrey pulled away from us and walked ahead. The night was calm. Oddly enough, there were no monsters in the area. Every few steps, Jofrey pulled out what seemed like a Materia, looked at it for a minute and put it back in his pocket. At times he would adjust his path slightly and continue down the grassland, towards the shore. The shore was in plain view now, stretches of dark blue waters, like a massive ink stain, lined the horizon. Jofrey pointed out to sea, where a boat was gently illuminated by the waning moon. "That's the boat we'll use."

"And you know the guy who owns the boat?" Kathe questioned his lack of morals.

"Do you really want to know? I’m figuring as much as you would want me to know why you're really out here," he sneered, taking off his jacket. He peeled off his boots, placed them in his jacket and tied a knot to hold them. "I'll bring the boat closer to shore. You'll need to come out a bit into the water and climb into the boat. I suggest taking off your shoes. It takes forever to get them dry otherwise," he gave us his final instruction as he placed the makeshift bag over his head, and looked over to leave us on the shore.

With that he walked out a few steps before wading out, keeping the bag of shoes on his head with one hand. It took some time for him to reach the boat but once he did, he reached up to grab the ladder hanging over the hull and climbed up rather effortlessly. I was surprised how in good shape he was. Not to say that he wasn't visibly built. Oh, he was. There was rippling muscle mass under that jacket. But he seemed rather well trained around a boat, beyond what his physical capabilities would foretell.

I looked over to see my sister fuming. "Kathe, you really need to calm down a bit."

"What do you want me to do Helena? Hmm?" She looked intensely out to sea, the light reflecting off the water flickered in her eyes. She closed them and said, "I won't lose you again. If he ever threatens that for me, I'll end him."

I didn't want to cause a scene on such an occasion, but truly Kathe did not have the place to make such decisions. She was always unable to let others take charge or trust others to do so. It was somewhat comforting to see that she hadn't changed, after all these years. I needed her here, with me, but on the same team. Not fighting against the man that was supposed to help, especially if she agreed the plan to begin with.

The boat hissed and sputtered before roaring towards us. It came to a stop and Jofrey came to up to the side, swinging his arms back and forth, signalling that it was safe to head out. My sister and I pulled off our shoes and tied their shoelaces together and threw them over our heads.

"I think it's a good time to tell you that I'm not so good at swimming,” I confessed.

Kathe sighed, stopped walking further out into the ocean and turned to face me. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Well, I guess there's nothing to do about it. I just thought it would be a good time to point out that I can't actually swim. I can float. Can't swim."

She smiled, "don't worry. It's not that far out. Just let the waves wash over you and use your hand to pull you forward. We'll be at the boat in no time."

She took my small pack and placed it over her head, along with the small pack she made for herself and lead the way into the deep night. I nodded, accepting my fate, and continued walking out into the frigid waters. Soon, the water reached out to our hips and then our shoulders. We were unable to walk out and decided it was time to wade out to the boat, our toes occasionally scrapping the floor of the ocean. It didn't take as long as Jofrey to get to the side; for that I was thankful. We reached up to the ladder, first Kathe, then I it was my turn to go up. My eyes were fixated on the side of the boat, even as the ladder swayed and slammed around, a petrification of heights would normally have kept me from going this far. It wasn't that high and I knew that if I fell it wouldn't mean death but it was the mere mention of having my feet not touching the ground. I reached the top, threw my boots over and pulled myself up. I wasn't very strong upper-body-wise but I made up for that with whatever lower-body strength I could gather, and pushed with my legs. I straddled the side, which was incredibly uncomfortable and slipped over into the boat. It was all such an ordeal, but it was finally over.

Kathe looked to Jofrey who was in the captain's cabin. "So, can you steer this thing to Costa del Sol?"

Jofrey shrugged, "I guess. I mean I drove a boat… Once."

Kathe threw her head in her hand, a sigh so audible that I could hear it over the load roaring of boat, her soggy socks slapping hard against the metal flooring.  I walked into the cabin, Jofrey nodding, acknowledging my presence. The cabin offered some warm against the cool evening winds that pierced through my soaking clothing. I leaned into the control panel and watched as Jofrey tinkered around with the red buttons and small switches. I was amazed how intricate the boat truly was for its seemingly insignificant size. But, then again I was biased by books that only really described the biggest and best of boats Shin Ra could send out to the war. I decided to ask, "so do you really not know how to get to Costa del Sol?"

Jofrey laughed. "It'll take a while to get a hang of it again, but these boats have locator devices on them. Another handy device from Shin Ra." I snorted in disapproval of that very erroneous statement. He noticed that there was a correlation between my disapproval and the world "Shin Ra" and took note.

There was a moment of awkward silence before I decided it was time to break it again. "How long do you think it'll take?"

He looked at the gadget for a minute before answering, "we'll be there by morning, I would gather. Maybe this is a good time to change and get some rest in the rooms below."

I nodded in compliance. "Thanks Jofrey. We leave it all to you." He smiled gently and returned to the helm.

I took Kathe down to the rooms where we found two quaint closet like rooms with two bunk beds in each. We stripped down to our undies, hung our soaking clothes and quickly took to each our own closet, leaving the door open. We started to reminisce about our childhood and then spoke a while about our lives without each other, without a sense of irony. I listened mostly, refusing to reminisce about a past I decided to leave behind in Midgar. She realize how quiet I was and knew what it meant. To save me the trouble, she filled the empty silence with her own anecdotes. We spoke of how Kathe had left with Gast for the north to work in the Glaciers with a group of promising youths to study the wonders of the Crater. I remembered as a young girl hearing about my sister leaving Midgar, exploring the world and couldn’t help but thinking that it could have been me. I wasn’t as talented or as passionate as Kathe but I knew, given a different circumstance, I may have been able to escape Midgar.

The more I listened the more I fumed in silence. The more I fumed, the more I wanted to forget so that I could finally move on and not be burdened by the uselessness of my own memories. Being frustrated spurred on more memories I much rather forget. Our father once took us on a camping trip as children, close to home… Or rather, what I thought was a camping trip, being a child and all. Both of us got caught in the rain. Our father instructed us to quickly change. He didn’t want to bury another. Not before he died. I wanted to remind her of that time, to drag her into my misery as well, but thought against it. As I debated, I noticed she had slowly drifted to sleep. I followed suit, without identifying sleep's warm embrace.

I was woken up by a stifling scent of smoke. Frantically I searched for Kathe in her bed. She wasn’t in her bed. Had she left me? I decided to move to the deck and plan my next move. It was probably just a malfunction of some kind. I couldn’t attest as to how serious it was but the smoke was thick enough that I could not see up the staircase. It frightened me not being able to see as I felt my way up the stairs to the deck, but it frightened me more that every breath I took instead of air I received suffocating smoke. I tried calling out for someone but I knew with the roar of the motor, still running, I could not be heard.

I managed to reach the deck, the smoke blowing out it the night air. It became clear that I was not safe. Thick pillars of flames licked the sky, claiming the majority of things in sight. I panicked and called out to my sister, half expecting her to come to my rescue as she had done so recently. But her consistent past behaviour pointed to a more tragic circumstance, one that left me alone on a burning boat. I wanted to believe that she came to my rescue, but with the smoke being the way it was, she was torn away and was saved herself. I cried once more, pleading to something greater than myself, asking that I not be left alone to die here in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t think I deserved to die. Not like this. Not yet.

In a parting of the flames by the bow of the boat, I could see a dark figure stand. Not questioning their sanity, I approached them with haste, reaching out to what I thought was safety. The figure, like a ghost amongst the flames, approached me in turn. A wave of guilt brought me to my knees and claimed whatever breath I could gather in my lungs with all the smoke and heat. She smiled gently, as I would imagine she would, a glint of love and compassion still warm and beating in her blue eyes. Her arms, outstretched, they awaited me.

“Come, Helena. I missed you so much.”

How wicked, how cruel. “This isn’t real, is it?”

“You’ve gotten so tall, baby girl. So beautiful.” She crouched, two hands cupped around my face, brushing away the tearing that seemed to form of their own volition. “You’ve been alone for so long. I know how hard it must have been for you. But you don’t need to be alone any longer, my sweet princess. Shh,” she cooed, “I’m here now.”

I had been alone for so long. I had gotten along without anyone to rely on that I forgot what it was to feel a warm embrace. But it felt so familiar to me; like a long forgotten dream battling for dominance in your subconscious mind. I wanted to melt into her and have her claim me into the fiery abyss I knew was awaiting me behind her sugar laced words. And, to be honest, I was ready to be claimed. It was something, though, that kept me grounded and not wanting what she had to offer. Even if it meant abandoning a silent and peaceful end for a life of strife, I was not willing to let memories of those past waste away because I was selfish. Not this time. No. I was grown now.

“I’m sorry. I can’t…” I searched for the strength, but could not carry on.

“Please, Helena. It’s so lonely without my little baby girl. I need you. Please, come with me.”

“No,” I denounced her attempts at deterring me from my goal, a goal I knew she would approve. “I need to stay. I need to fight.”

“You fool,” she bellowed, her face sullen with disappointment. “You would burn this world to the ground if you could! What will stop you, if not your mother?”

I woke with a start. I was in the bed. I realized then it was a dream. Possibly one of the most lucid dreams I had had in a very long time, if not ever. I looked over to find Kathe not sleeping in her bed and a fluttering sensation rose from my stomach. I called out her name but it rang hallow in the empty hull. I had to calm myself by pointing out that nothing was burning; I was no longer dreaming. I had to be certain though, I had to see her face. So I quickly threw on my clothes from the night before, now dried, and hurried to the deck. The deck was quiet, not a murmur or mutter of the motor. It was then I realized that we were stationed, Costa del Sol lining three-quarters of the horizon. I looked the deck over but saw no one. When I heard Jofrey’s voice overboard, I leaned in to find that he was conversing with a tanned local. I called out to him, excited that I had both found a familiar face and was able to travel to Costa del Sol in my lifetime. The poor skittish lady ran off before Jofrey could turn back to greet me.

He instructed me to meet him by going back through the hull. We met at a door otherwise partially submerged underwater. He led me into the warm afternoon air, the humidity wafting in and instantaneously causing my hair to fluff up into a ball. The sun felt so glorious on my placid skin, prickling every one of my dulled nerves into a state of stimulated bliss. I never understood how people could tan themselves until this very moment. Being deprived of the sun’s rays for as long as those living in Midgar have, we came up with alternative solutions for the depression and vitamin D deficiencies. But, it’s true what they say, nothing quite beats the real thing.

“Enjoying yourself?”

I looked at myself and chuckled. I was just standing there, dumbfounded. It was the look on Jofrey’s face was priceless, however. He seemed to be questioning what two little scraps of sanity I could rub together to spark a good show.

“I never could imagine Costa del Sol would look so appealing,” I revealed, “even though I would dream every year spending my holidays here.”

“Always better in the flesh, I guess.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I looked around, “where’s Kathe?”

 “She’s renting a room.” Jofrey noticed the worry in my face and softened instantaneously, “there’s no need to worry.”

I nodded. I knew he was telling the truth. Why would he lie? But that dream really threw me in for a loop. I did understand what Hojo had done to me could not be reversed in a few days: it would take time before I could have a decent night’s rest without the medication or terror playing tricks on my mind. They were a nuisance but they made this journey interesting, revealing suppressed sentiments I thought I abandoned long ago. Perhaps by being so close to Kathe, those old memories were just waiting to burst up to the surface.

“Everything okay,” he asked, cautiously treading unfamiliar territory.

“Yeah, just tired. First time sleeping on a boat and all.”

He smiled. “Nice to see two sister’s close enough to share a life’s journey like this.”

“We weren’t always close,” I revealed, “but we’re working on it.”

“Family, am I right?”

“Do you have a family, Jofrey? Kids?”

Jofrey laughed wholeheartedly. “You know I like a woman who can make me laugh.” I blushed. Was he flirting? You know, I never have been flirting on before. I tried flirting before, but was actually told to stop.

“No,” he sobered finally, “just two brothers and a sister back in Junon.”

“Are you close?”

There was silence before he finally replied, “I guess. I mean, we’re working on it.”

I knew I touched a sensitive subject, a subject we could mutually agree never to speak about again, so I decided to change the subject. “What about the girl you were talking about? Get a number?

He laughed. “I was getting some information. Apparently a Shin Ra carrier landed here a couple days ago. There was a couple of executives on board.”

“Really?” I tried to seem somewhat interested but in reality I was crawling in my skin.

“Yeah,” he continued, “according to the woman, there was an incident on board there vessel that landed here just before we did."

My eye brow twitched involuntarily. "Incident?"

He looked around making certain only four ears were in the vicinity, "apparently they were carrying a bunch of terrorists who apparently ransacked the place. Shin Ra will probably release otherwise but the word is, they killed some of the crew."

"Huh." I looked to the helipad, something Shin Ra officials would definitely use. This place, as beautiful as it was, was not safe. We need to get supplies and leave as soon as we find our next destination. Kathe and I had brought up some good places that were suitable but we needed to make a decision A.S.A.P.

"You don't want to stay here too long, do you?" How he read me like a book was beyond me. Perhaps Kathe was right: I needed to stay away from him to avoid any disaster.

"Well, you know, we’ve had our own run-ins with Shin Ra," I blurted. And disaster  _not_  averted.

"You didn't tell me that." Jofrey was beginning to get annoyed with the information that we were withholding. I didn't want to correct myself because, as for the time being, it worked really well for us. I mean, that meant we could avoid Shin Ra now, and for a reason. “What do you mean _run-in_?”

I slowly felt pressured to say something. I had to, didn’t I? “Embezzlement?” It sounded like the least terrible of any of my options that seemed bad enough for us to avoid Shin Ra.

“Embezzlement?” He repeated. “What the actual fuck?!”

It was then I understood how deep I set us in for. The man was displeased. I explained to him that Shin Ra could not possibly be looking for us when they had their hands full with President killing terrorists who had the balls to kill crew members on a carrier shipping over executives. It was clear he wasn’t buying any of it. We were liars, he said. Little did he really know.

“Then I’ll increase our deal. How’s five thousand?”

“You’re really desperate. I guess I would be if I were wanted for embezzling money from Shin Ra.” He sighed, “fine. Eight.”

We shook on it and started to walk out into the city, avoiding the fact that he was still displeased. This was quickly spiraling out of control and, for every move I made that I hoped would make Jofrey feel more at ease, I lost him by taking two steps back. In addition, Shin Ra was actually on the move and we were moving, somehow, in their very direction. We were either going to lose our guide or get caught. Or worse off, lose our guide directly in the mouth of the dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are continuing to enjoy this! Let me know what you think.
> 
> Best,  
> mesamis


	4. Chapter Three - Like you to Stay, Want you to be my Prize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Summary: Helena is a fugitive, running away from Shin Ra's grasp. Along with her sister, Kathelyn and their not-so trusted bodyguard Jofrey, they embark on a journey neither bargained for, a journey of discovery and destruction. A journey that will end in the bowels of Gaia itself. In the end, what can we say for the scars we carry on our backs?
> 
> Chapter Summary: Helena and crew land in Costa del Sol. Helena makes a startling discovery.

**Chapter Three**

**Like you to Stay, Want you to be my Prize**

_“So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.”_

\--Helen Keller

There was something amusing in the way Kathe’s face turned all shades of red as she became increasing infuriated with the innkeeper before her. They had sparked an intense debate in the Costa del Sol bar while patrons looked on with amusement. According to the innkeeper, he wasn’t about to cave into her demands and risk losing his only source of income. Shin Ra had been understanding the first time around and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake. Kathe hadn’t been sleeping too well since her arrival at Midgar and was hoping that she would finally get some rest at the luxurious Costa del Sol hotel. But the innkeeper was now only accepting clients with ID’s since his last guests who signed in with no ID’s turned out to be the stowaways on the Shin Ra carrier. The man, now embarrassed and under close watch by the military police, refused to let Kathe stay no matter how much she was willing to pay him.

“Let it go,” I murmured, noticing a great many eyes on us.

She shook her head, defeated. “We all need to sleep. You can’t go on another day without a decent night’s rest.”

“My driving that bad?” Jofrey joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Kathe snapped her tongue, giving him the coldest shoulder I had ever seen anyone give some else. Which was saying much coming from Shin Ra. We thrived on gossip and back talking to fill the void we felt at the end of the day. Jofrey took Kathe’s reaction with poise, however, winking in my direction. It were as if he knew how she was and we were merely rolling with the punches, enjoying her occasional outbursts together.

“Well, no use in fighting it. Might as well have a drink and plan our next move, seeing as neither of you have ID’s,” Jofrey pointed out, sitting at the bar.

From the corner of my eye I could see a young lady approach us. “Want room, yes?” She spoke in her very broken Midgarian.

“Yes,” Kathe answered skeptically.

“We have rooms. 150 gil.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Upstairs,” the bartended filled in. He slipped the key across the counter. Kathe grabbed it before either of us could react. She in turn slipped 500 of the gil I gave her when we left Kalm.

“We’d rather not be bothered,” she whispered.

“Didn’t plan on it,” he replied. “Stairs are on your right as you walk on outside. Enjoy your stay.”

We walked out to the side door and up to the rooms. It was stuffy as we walked higher up but we had a better view of the ocean this way through the brick archways. The salted air came in spurts, offering some relief from the stifling humidity. She led us to a room, unlocked the door and showed us where the washroom was. Check out was the next day at four unless we wanted to stay longer. I shook my head, told her we doubted it, that we were just stopping by on our way to somewhere else. She shrugged and left us on our own.

Kathe looked to Jofrey who was beginning to get comfortable on one of the beds. "Kathe, we knew we had to share a room with whoever we were travelling with," I explained, noticing the clear uneasiness in her hawking.

“It's not that," she huffed. She grabbed his shoulder roughly. She shook his arms, which were locked behind his head, until they came loose. "Do you have a problem with the way we’re conducting our trip?"

He woke with a start, noticing his arm-pillows were knocked literally from beneath him, a death glare shot out from the corner of his eye. When he noticed it was Kathe he returned to his lounged position. "You’re sister told me about Shin Ra,” he stated briefly, sealing my fate.

Kathe turned around, shadows menacingly gathering around her face. “Did she now? And what did my little sweetheart of a sister tell you?”

“I just explained to him that we, um, embezzled…” I trailed off, seeing Kathe’s expression change from bad to worse.

Jofrey laughed. “I heard of worse, Kathe.”

“It’s Kathelyn,” she corrected. She sighed, something my mother was known for doing often. “What are you going to do about it?”

He closed his eyes, easing back into his bed. “What should I do about it? None of my damned business what you did in the past. So long as I don’t get involved, we’re golden. Anyway, you’re sister and I arranged an alternative deal.”

“She paid you more, did she? You’re kind tends to be incredibly predictable.”

Jofrey didn’t bother in answering. He knew he was in it for the money. He had his reasons, I was certain. We all did when it came to money. I found it deplorable that Kathe, up on her high Chocobo, thought she could pass judgment on him. She, of all people, could understand where he was coming from. It was strange though; I didn’t blame her either. She was taking the moral high ground now and with that came denouncing a very troubling reality. But I was a big girl who appreciated the world for what it was. It was reassuring to have Kathe try and veil me off from that world.

The wind blew in from the open window, wafting in the salty air from the sea. It reminded me of home and a time when my senses were at their prime, capturing every little tidbit, every little ray of sunshine, every little droplet of rain, into a pristine memory. I walked to the open window, dropping my pack along the way, to get a better look of the world I had been sheltered from. It seemed to swell out before me, with open arms, offering its bolstering warm sun, its rambunctious sea and welcoming cool earth. In the distance, the setting sun called a multitude of vacationers to the shore, to catch the last rays of light.

Genesis, after spending some time at the base in Junon, was surprised to hear that I had never seen a proper sun setting off into the ocean. We lived on a farm far enough from the shore that the sun would set well into the horizon before touching the ocean. He made a solemn promise: “I’ll take you someday to see Costa del Sol. You’ll see how beautiful a sun setting into the ocean can be.”

I chuckled to myself. “Not the same without you.”

“Sorry?” Kathe asked, thinking I was mentioning for her. I shook my head in response and she continued unpacking our things, making note of what we should buy while in the area.

“Maybe we should go and see the sunset,” Jofrey called, catching the reddish glow filling the small room.

“That actually sounds good,” Kathe agreed. “What do you think, Helena?”

“I guess.” I wasn’t sure if it would be the same. But if I were to make this trip worth anything to them, I suppose I should start by living out my life for once and letting go of inhibitions that were keeping me in doing so.

We walked out from the room, down through the dark staircase into the warm afternoon. I watched disjointedly as the cluster of individuals and couples, walked down a staircase that led to the ocean. The sky became pink and the merchants took their goods away from prying eyes. A light redness laid over the beige cobble stone as the sun laid opaque to the sky. It became clear that the sun was in the midst of setting. Jofrey nudged me, flashed his smile and offered his arm. I nodded in compliance, taking it as my first date ever, and took his thick arm, without hesitation. Kathe quickly hooked her arm into my free one, which I didn't mind. Her claim over me in the sight of what she saw was a threat eased the tension in my heart.

We walked down to the beach and watched the greatest orb in human history set into the seemingly two-dimensional sea. It was incredible to think that the earth continued on beneath us, uninterrupted. And that the sun was only rotating into the great black abyss above and around. It made me feel so infinitesimal when I considered how many other possible planets there could be, like our Gaia, a planet that could sustain life (whatever that may be), in this limitless universe. And to think, centuries ago beings knew more of the flow of life, had seen life beyond their scope of science, and we just stood at the cusp of comprehending the magnitude of this power. It was the magnificence of nature that awakened these sentiments, long since killed off by te smog of Midgar, and breathed new life in it.

I slipped my arms out of Jofrey's and then Kathe's, bending down to my boots which I slipped off. Slowly, socks were peeled off and tucked into the inside of my boots. The warm and dampened sand, dampened by the foot traffic to and from the sea, seeped through my toes. I wiggled my toes up and down, digging them in and out of the sand, enjoying the silkiness of beach which I was never able to nor did I ever imagine I would be able to enjoy. I rolled my pant legs up, as far as they could roll before they suffocated the circulation around my calves. I slowly walked out to the ebbing sea, the point at which the water and land met in a dance of crashing foam. The water was cold, when I thought it would be warm. I walked further out, wondering how far I would have to walk before there was nothing to walk on. I turned to see if Kathe was still there, a sinking sense of fear seemed to appear whenever I turned my back to her. She waved gently, an approving smile on her face. I turned to face the horizon again. I needed to move on or I would miss what was ahead: the sun disappeared into the horizon. It would be gone well before I could capture its glory if I was not careful.

I fumbled up the beach again and place on my boots.

"How was it?" Kathe asked.

I nodded gently. "Cold."

“Funny how we can still enjoy the little things, eh, Helena?” Jofrey teased, helping me into my boots.

“We lived most of our lives in Midgar after our parents died,” Kathe decided to explain.

“Like I said: I’ve never been to Costa del Sol. And I’ve never seen a sunset over an ocean, either.” I looked one last time to see the tip of the sun still hanging onto the edge of the horizon. “I’m glad I got to see it.”

“I’m glad I could help out,” he smiled.

We walked back up to the room above the bar. I crashed into the bed without another word; this trip was taking everything out of me. Kathe and Jofrey continued to fidget around the room, avoiding each other as they did. I knew they wouldn't talk to each other, but I kept an ear out to see if they would by some oddity. Funnily, they kind of grunted to each other as they crossed each other at the bathroom door and again at the bed. I chuckled inwardly. They eventually settled down and the deepened breathing, commonplace during deep sleep, echoed in the room.

I turned over to my back to find the cooler side of the pillow when I felt my necklace tighten across my neck. My hand slipped my shirt and pulled out the pendant. I clearly remember the _good doctor_ taking it away. The crystal refracted the cool moonlight trickling in from the one window of the room. I smiled reflexively. Angeal would have been livid to see me in the ocean. I remember just anxiously glaring at the Shin Ra Academy pool after hours, the cuffs of my pants rolled up, until Genesis decided it would be amusing to "teach me how to swim". Or rather pushing me in and seeing if I’d float.

But now I was here. I travelled by boat across the vast sea to see a sunset that put every TV depiction to shame. I wondered if they could see me wherever they were. I wondered if they looked on with approval as I marched on despite the tides of the past coming to sweep me away. I had to say I was rather proud of myself. I was determined to move forward, even if it meant living it in perpetual fear. However, it was their fervour and all the more tragic demises that kept me grounded. I knew I couldn’t possibly rot away in Kalm, with Kathe watching in horror as they would take her last family member from her. Yet I feared what lurked in every corner, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself.

I looked around, the darkness sneaking in around me, the moonlight offering little aid. I slipped my necklace back in its place, close to my heart, where it belonged. I turned over again and slipped my arm under the pillow. I closed my eyes, moisture slipping out the side. I couldn't decide which was darker, now that the moon reached its apex in the sky: behind my eyes or with my eyes wide open? I decided to ignore the strange thought creeping in and slowly I slipped into sleep.

I was dreaming that I was in a green field. The grass reaching my hips. I was walking through it, my hands touching each blade of grass. I could feel each tip tickle my fingers and palms. The warmth of the hot sun seemed to pelt onto my bare shoulders. I started to appreciate that I was alone in this world of grass, but this did not disturb me any, as if it was meant to be a world just for me. I looked in every direction from my position in this world and again, it was confirmed that there wasn't a soul to be found. It was kind and liberating to be in silence. As I twirled around one final time, I could see in the distance a small house and a small stream of smoke coming from an undefined point, appearing out of nowhere. Was this my house as a child?, I asked myself.

A sudden pang of fear crept beneath my ribs as I called out for Kathe, but she wouldn't answer nor show herself in my thoughts. As I took a deep breath to cry out my sister's name one last time, a cool leather gloved hand clasped around my partially opened lips, suffocating my cries. The black glove, I could feel the fingers tighten around my jaw as I desperately struggled against a malevolent force. They smelt of warm iron, yet felt like cold blood. I tried to scream for help but the hand muffled my desperate cries for help. I tried to pry away the fingers, but that only made the hand tighten, the fingers digging into my mouth.

I woke suddenly, my body forcing the bed to grate across the wooden floor. It was still night. I was safe. Kathe and Jofrey were still sound asleep in her bed. I shifted around to find a comfortable position, wide awake. I knew I wasn’t about to fall asleep anytime son. It was times like these where I was left with my only release: alcohol. There was a bar downstairs, a short walk. I could slip in and out without anyone noticing. The lack of Shin Ra presence after the carrier disembarking had meant that their targets had moved onto greener pastures. It was the perfect night for a nightcap to ease my obviously troubled mind.

I turned around to grab a sweater from my pack and found that Jofrey had woken up alongside me after hearing the noise. "What's going on?" He whispered.

"Bad dream," I whispered back.

"What about?"

"Don't remember," I lied.

He nodded, understanding my predicament and whispered back, "it's over now."

No, it didn’t seem like it was. And these dreams were making that clear. I swung the sheets to the side and slipped out into the cooler night air. Jofrey asked where I was going. I answered that I needed some fresh air but that I would stay close. He seemed anxious and even tried to get out, but I protested. I needed some time alone. We were safe enough and Costa del Sol wasn’t necessarily the crime capital of the world unlike Midgar, the city I spent the majority of my life in. He nodded in agreement but asked that I get back as soon as I could, so Kathe wouldn’t wake up seeing me outside of her little cocoon.

I walked down to the bar. I think I had always been like this. I mostly spent my time in solitude with an empty bottle of premium Nibel scotch hanging in my limp hands, glazed eyes watching the screen flicker some bullshit. It was only Genesis who partook in my escapades, while Angeal came as a chaperon of sorts. _“Someone has to be responsible for you two._ ” He was right the majority of the time. We would get so wasted we needed to be piled into a taxi to get back to the Shin Ra Building. I still have no idea how we got ourselves into our apartments. But eventually the party stopped and Genesis became consumed with this incessant need to attend doctor’s appointments. At first, I hastily diagnosed him as being Obsessive Compulsive, laughing the whole ordeal off with a drink in my hand. But when I noticed Angeal refused to laugh along with me, like his obsession with LOVELESS, I knew I missed something.

I walked into the bar, surveying my surroundings. When I concluded that I would not be drinking with Shin Ra tonight, I snuck in quietly. I seemed to fit in enough. It was dead, only a few already hung over patrons and a woman, who I assumed didn’t see the light of day in quite some time, was bundled in layers of wool. Wearing nothing but a wool sweater and track pants I had been using as sleepwear, I asked for my first drink of the night.

As the bartender slapped the full glass to the table and I fished out some money. He rejected the fare. “Courtesy of the man down the counter,” he explained, pointing to the man whom I had not seen previously because one patron had been partially obscuring his existence.

I anxiously took the glass studying the man’s face intently. He smiled and moved down the few seats that separated us. I honestly did not understand why I had not noticed him sitting so close to me. I thought he would have called his goons, but there he was, in the seat next to me.

“Reeve,” I introduced.

“Helena. Fancy meeting you here.” I shuffled sideways, trying to see if anyone of from Shin Ra had popped out. “I’m on vacation. No one’s here.”

Reeve was one of the few people I knew to hate the inner-politics of Shin Ra, and outwardly so. He didn’t want to get involved and refused to attend the majority of functions that did not truly require his presence. I liked him. He was a handsome fellow. Smart. It was a wonder in the secretarial circles how he was not married by this point.

“I defected,” I callously pointed out to him. Why was he talking to me? Boozing me up?

“You were one of Hojo’s experiments. So it’s none of my business.” He looked down to his glass and smiled. “Funny enough, Hojo has left Shin Ra as well,” he revealed, that smile still lurking.

I double-took, “pardon me?”

He laughed, “you heard right. He had a disagreement with Rufus in terms of what the vision of the Science and the Research and Development divisions would be.”

I nearly cracked a rib. Rufus, being “Kid Shinra”… Following in daddy’s footsteps? But I was curious, so I asked: “what was the disagreement?”

“Well he didn’t want to fund the same Shin Ra projects that had been funded in the past. Rufus had been increasingly interested in this idea of global and mass development. Unlike daddy, who wanted to research for the sake of research, Rufus wanted some return on his investments.” He turned the volume down, whispering gently, “he’s now refusing to fund the JENOVA project or the majority of the Cetran research. Rufus was certain they were all failures. So Hojo told him to go, and I quote: fuck his dead mother.”

“What?” That honestly sounded nothing like the Hojo I knew. But then again, he never had been told by Shinra senior that all of his life’s work would be demolished in the blink of an eye. “So he left?”

Reeve nodded. “From what I’ve been hearing is that he’s been doing his own sabbatical work.” He leaned in, a grievous tone as he spoke low, “mostly on his dear old son.”

It made sense. He worked tirelessly at Sephiroth. He was the perfect little constructed child out of the scrap material from experiments from far more experienced and more talented scientists. It tore Hojo apart that his own son bore a great deal of frustration towards him. After Sephiroth had found out his father was the lackluster Hojo from left open documents, he continued to dismiss the man as deranged and trifling, as if nothing mattered at all. He made that little silver-haired fucker, he made him into what he was! I remembered Hojo saying something to that effect. Of course, in the privacy of his office and without the knowledge that I was in the vicinity. So it consumed him to understand the son he made, through genetic engineering, to the point that he told Rufus to fuck his dead mother.

“Shame for him that Sephiroth’s dead. There’s nothing left for him to fuck up.”

Reeve smiled disarmingly. “I heard he managed to _fuck up_ one last thing before he left.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I surmised, “I’m tougher than I look.”

“That you are, Helena. I only heard stories, you know. Hojo bragging, mostly.”

“Of course he would,” I sneered. “He ruined me, Reeve. He took everything away from me.”

“What happened?” He probed, placing a warm hand on my shoulder.

I looked up at the gesture, uncertain of his motifs. “What do you want, Reeve?”

“Nothing. You know how much I dislike Hojo; everyone knows that. But I just want to hear from you what happened. I guess it’s in my voyeuristic nature,” he joked.

“He convinced the Science Department to have me institutionalized.”

“After Angeal passed away,” he added.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “When I found out, I nearly lost it. Well,” I chuckled, “I did lose it. Did you see the poor TURK I punched? I mean, he was only trying to help me out after I slit my own wrists. But I was alone, nothing left to hold me back anymore. And then that little rat bastard had the audacity to say _I_ was crazy? You have no idea what it was like to have everything torn away from me like that! Only to be thrown off in his dungeon, to live the rest of my life as his little failed experiment.”

“But you got out.”

“I did. Kathe found me and helped me escape.”

“Let’s keep it that way. Now with Hojo resigned—.”

“He’s free to do as he pleases,” I interjected. I knew Reeve was right. Now that Hojo didn’t have the board of executives to sate, he was free to roam the world to collect all the little samples he so desired. It wouldn’t be long before we crossed paths and his interests in me would be piqued. I was a failed experiment that was true. But he wasn’t the kind of man to let failure go to waste. “But I’m not ready to get caught. Not yet, anyway.”

“I hope not.”

“Can you tell me something, Reeve? Why was Shin Ra crossing the ocean? Does it have something to do with the terrorists?”

A grave look turned his mild manner grin into a deep scowl. “There have been murders. Some rather gruesome.”

“So Shin Ra’s in the crime scene business now?”

My joke lightened his mood. “It’s the rumours that have been circulating around the murders that have kept Rufus interested. A man with a six-foot sword.”

My drink nearly slipped out of my hands. I quickly regained composure. “Rumours,” I dismissed.

“You may be right. But it’s been enough to gather the attention of Rufus, Hojo and the terrorists.”

“He’s dead,” I snapped, “they’re all dead.” Pacing thoughts drove me into a state of panic. I needed Kathe. She was the stronger, more level-headed sister, the one I had to depend on. I wanted her to tell me that he was wrong and that my reality was right. There was something all too comforting in knowing that they were all dead, just a fond memory I could fold in my heart. Not a twisted delusion, twisted by the unforgiving passage of time, as unforgiving as it had been to me. “He would never do something like that.”

His mouth opened but nothing came out. He thought against whatever he was about to say and instead opted to say something else: “you’re right, Helena. But I just want you to be careful.”

He nodded and took his last drink in one swig before gently tapping me on the shoulder in camaraderie. I watched as he slipped out of the bar and into the damp night air, flashing me a smile before he closed the door behind him. I knew there was no way I could trust anyone, not anymore. But it was people like Reeve that could convince me otherwise. And if I could be convinced by Reeve I hoped that I could one day, without a doubt in my mind, I could trust Kathe.I abandoned the future we could have had as sisters, the one I dreamt of as a young girl. That was all long gone. But I needed her. She was quicker, brasher. If Hojo was now operating on his own agenda, it would be increasingly difficult to manage both independently moving bodies: Hojo and the Shin Ra Corporation who still wanted me to answer for my defection. I knew I couldn’t do this alone. As much as I detached myself from concept of having a sister, I became more and more confident she would prove useful and I would avoid losing her yet again.

I drank the last of my drink, which I just realized was a whiskey on the rocks, and slipped back upstairs. Tomorrow was another day, I imagined. I just needed to remind myself of that fact, tomorrow was always another day. And the past, well, that was a long ways ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys think. angst!Helena is pretty angst but I have a feeling she'll get over herself. 
> 
> All the best,  
> mesamis


	5. Chapter Four - Mother I'm Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Summary: Helena is a fugitive, running away from Shin Ra's grasp. Along with her sister, Kathelyn and their not-so trusted bodyguard Jofrey, they embark on a journey neither bargained for, a journey of discovery and destruction. A journey that will end in the bowels of Gaia itself. In the end, what can we say for the scars we carry on our backs?
> 
> Chapter Summary: The group heads off to Corel. Helena has more dreams. Weird shit is happening.

**Chapter Four**

**I See your Star you Left it Burning for me, Mother I’m here**

_“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”_

_\--Havelock Ellis_

I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t as if I truly needed it at this point. Sleeping for five years would have its toll on anyone, I imagined. What aggravated me, however, was the need to constantly remind myself that it would be alright, I just needed to be patient. Why couldn’t I just admit to myself that it may never be _alright_ and be done with it? It was becoming more apparent as the sun seeped through the shaded window that I would be faced with this dilemma time and time again. I knew of running away from my true intentions, those that burned holes under my skin as I refused to give them the attention they so craved. I knew of the repercussions each time I turn away from these thoughts but I couldn’t just simply accept them. Just as I couldn’t accept the reality placed before me, the one Reeve so vicariously left without a parting word of regret.

He was a conflicted boy, tortured by his own history he had no control over. He was tragically beautiful, unattainable, and therefore untouchable. He quickly became warped, his perception of reality made from a scientist’s petri dish. But he was no murderer. Sephiroth held onto his duties as SOLDIER, the only thing tying him to the world he so wanted to be a part of. He would much rather die than spit on the shred of dignity that gave him. But he was dead, so it didn’t matter. And Kathe wouldn’t hear of it, because he was dead and this was simply a rumour, a ghost tale that Shin Ra told its members late at night. I knew, deep inside he was dead. Or, maybe I just hoped they were all dead and that they hadn’t left me behind, yet again.

“Morning,” I could hear Jofrey whisper, “didn’t hear you get in yesterday.”

I turned over to face him. “Glad to hear I still got it.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“I guess not. You too?”

“Heard your sister mumbling. Woke me up.” It was true, Kathe had always been a talker. She would talk so loud it would wake me out of a dead sleep. One night I laid awake just to hear what she was saying. It was incoherent and meant nothing to me, but she was laughing, chuckling to whomever was sharing her dream space.

“Don’t sleep much, do you? What’s keeping you awake?” He asked frankly.

I thought on it for a minute. It wasn’t that I didn’t sleep much it was that it was interrupted and disturbed. But he didn’t need to know about that. “I just don’t sleep much. Never really have,” I responded. He shrugged and jostled his sandy hair about, letting loose golden curls. I’m sure Kathe would be happy to hear how I was driving a wedge between us.

“Mrphm,” Kathe let out a muffled grunt. It was loud enough that it woke her.

“Morning,” I greeted her, walking to the washroom, “glad to see someone can sleep with all that noise.”

She dismissed me with a curt hand gesture, one you wouldn’t want your kids doing. “I haven’t slept like that in ages, so give me a fucking break.”

I gave her the much break she needed and headed into the shower. I turned on the tap, letting the cool water spurt out, waiting for it to get warm enough for my tastes. I always did enjoy my quite showers. I planned on taking my time, absorbed in my little world for a moment. This of course was short-lived as Kathe followed me into the bathroom. I could see her, through the veil of the shower curtain, moving towards the toilet. She had a skewed concept of what constituted as personal space. I imagined it had something to do with her living conditions up north. They probably all shared the same bathroom, the same bedroom, interchanged girlfriends and boyfriends… I supposed we all had our struggles. 

“We were thinking about going out the market,” she spoke up over the roar of the shower. “We might as well prepare for a long journey.”

“Fine.”

“We’ll keep you safe, Helena. I know it may feel like it’s impossible to do, but I can do it.” She seemed convinced. Even if it were some fantasy she constructed for herself, she was definitely pulling me in for the ride. I wanted to be convinced. I wanted to be safe. I wanted to believe that my sister, my hero, could save me from anything. It was childish and simplistic, but I wanted to be saved for once. The very notion that someone planned on being my hero was all I needed. Maybe I should tell her that.

But instead I was quiet, rinsing out the soap from my hair. She took my silence as an invitation to press further and decided, by some idiotic construction, to swing the curtain back. I shrieked, ripping the curtain from her hand and draping it around my body.

“You fucking idiot!” I screamed, pushing her hard in the chest.

“Well you weren’t answering!” She shouted back. “And it’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”

“That was almost twenty years ago!”

Her eyes narrowed, peering through my guise. Through the thin curtain, she traced my bare shoulder. “You still have the tattoo, huh?”

I looked to the black markings running down the sides of my shoulders and along the middle of my back. They weren’t going anywhere, as hideous and unwanted as they were. I shrugged, closing the curtain behind me. I continued running the warm water on my face, closing my eyes. I could hear the door creaking shut. It was nice to have silence again. The way the shower let a portion of its stream trickle out, small droplets landing on my eyelids, reminded me of how the rain days I would spend looking for someone to take time off my hands. It would rarely rain in Midgar, the smog was so thick, but when it did I enjoyed getting caught outside. But I needed to hurry, I reminded myself. I didn’t have the luxury anymore. I had responsibilities.

I quickly got dressed and joined Kathe and Jofrey who were ignoring each other as the prattled around the room. Kathe went off to the bathroom, flashing a gentle smile. I went about fixing the bag, picking up where she left off. Jofrey was fiddling with some short blade. I was mildly curious and so watched him from the corner of my eye. He seemed to have notice, exposing his blade as he worked. Weapons did little to interest me. In fact, they frightened me. Intuitively, I should have been desensitized to them. Being exposed to them in a variety of compromising contexts as a child and young woman had me staying clear of them.

“We’ll need to get you something,” he spoke up, as if my thoughts were laid to bare. “Can’t have you running around without protection.”

“Well, that’s why I have you, no?”

He laughed, “glad to hear that you trust me that much.”

“I have to.”

He reacted subtly, his eyes drifting upwards to meet mine for a moment, his face unchanged. Our gazes met for a minute before he retracted. He went on doing what he was doing, fingertips tracings the length of his blade in approval. He definitely seemed like the man I wanted on my side. A man who said little when little needed to be said, and who seemed to enjoy hitching rides for entertainment’s sake. He was my antigen. While I cautiously noted every possible danger, he was out there living a life I could only dream of. It was clear why I was drawn to him. And it was clear why Kathe wanted to drive him away.

The bathroom door swung open. “Well,” Kathe stated, twirling a towel around her head, “we should get ready to head out and catch the street market.”

Jofrey nodded, placing his short sword back into its sheath. “Have any idea where we should go next?”

“We’ll have to discuss it,” I interjected before Kathe could snap up the opportunity to shut him down. “Your boat, and all.”

He smiled. “Sounds good.” He threw on a jacket over his broad shoulders. “Ready?” He pointed to Kathe. She huffed as she pulled her hair into a quick, wet bun. I laughed. I never seen her so pissy before. It was sweet, honestly.   

I followed Jofrey out the door, Kathe followed suit. Together we walked down to the market. A large grouping of people massed in the square. People in bikinis and shorter than necessary man-kinis… They had all paired off or grouped together and walked around the large turnout of merchants screaming out their goods. Some were Materia booths and I peeled away from my own little group to go and take a look. They tried to sell me some but I was so deafened by the chatter I could hardly hear what they were saying. I picked a Materia at random, I wasn't paying attention to what it was meant to enchant, just looking at the glowing green aura it emitted in the warm organ sun. It reminded me of Mako… the Lifestream. Even more so, it reminded me distantly of someone's eyes… The piercing colour seemed to leak into the eyes of so many SOLDIERs, but it was only his that truly reflected the depth of the Lifestream. I chuckled at myself. Why was I even giving him more than necessary headspace?

"Fire, great choice for monsters around here." Startled by the voice, I snapped around to face the source. It was only Jofrey, with that stupid charming grin that made my heart flutter. I placed the Materia back down. I suddenly wasn't interested.

"Well we need someone who can cast magic, if you're any good," he continued, trying to pique my interest again. I shook my head. There was no way. He looked into the pile of Materia on display and picked one out, "look, a restore Materia."

I shrugged. "I'm not good at fighting," I replied flatly.

"You're sister said something like that.”

“Did she now?” I wasn’t surprised, honestly. As a child I feared most of everything. Even when children sparred and pretended to act as a SOLDIER, I frantically looked the other way. Even as an adult, the thought of a fight erupting on the SOLDIER floor made my palms sweaty and stick to the forms I felt much more comfortable with.

“But you know that we'll need someone to support us, if you're  _not good_  at fighting." His hands were thrown up to place air quotes around "not" and "good", questioning my definition of self-defence or what constituted as a lack thereof.

"What was that?" I called him out on it. I wasn't appreciating the condescending tone he was taking with me. Kathe, I could forgive, because she knew me. But this guy…

"Everyone starts somewhere, Helena, and everyone has their weakness. I can't cast magic worth shit. Seriously. Your sister seems like she can shoot, which is great, but what if something comes so close she has to attack it head on? Your sister said you are probably the most powerful magic user she knows."

She said that? Of course she would. But a magic use did not a warrior make. I huffed. "I haven't even touched a Materia in over ten years. I don't know if I can even conjure anything."

"If I can conjure up even the lowest of spells, you can." He picked up the restore, heal and fire Materia and paid the merchant. I was about to protest before he lifted a hand up. "Just promise me you won't let me die out there." I nodded. "Now let's get something a little more protective." He handed me the Materia, which I placed in my pocket ever so gently, as not to accidentally set it off. A fear I had carried with me since childhood.

"Hey!" He found Kathe looking at a bunch of potions on sale, half off.

"Hey! Someone’s having fun?" She called back, poking my full pocket.

I shrugged, swung my arm and hit Jofrey on his side. "All his fault. I think he's afraid I might be a burden."

A silence was hushed over the group. I was always awkward and said the most awkward of things. I knew they were worried I would be in the way or that I may get more hurt than they would. I knew I needed to prove myself in some way.

Jofrey decided to move along the street, saying that he needed to get a couple more things before the day was over. Kathe then flashed me her gun. I gaped at the sight. I never thought I would see her with a handgun. When we were young, we were taught how to shoot at targets with a rifle my father had. My sister did show promise. The cracking sound it produced scared me too much.

"Not bad right?” She boasted, “got it half off, though I know that's what it's really worth."

It amazed me to no end to see Kathe as this woman. All I could remember of her was the pudgy face (that's not to say, mine wasn't fatter) and her nagging tone. The nagging tone remained and the resolve she developed through the disappearance and eventual death of her… our father, it was admirable. Yet, something deep inside me hated her, hated how she managed to surmount her surroundings and in the midst of my plight, she abandoned all that she promised to hold dear. As if everything were just a lie. Looking at Kathe, some conflict arose in me. I could not say that I abandoned my love for her. But I couldn’t say that I left behind her betrayal. For everything she was and wasn't to me, I prayed this time it would be different.

"Helena?"

My gaze dawdled upwards. "Yeah, it’s great. I can't believe you can shoot that thing."

She laughed, "a boyfriend taught me."

“Which one?” I started to converse with her, partaking in a topic I knew nothing of.

“He was a couple years younger than me. Gast brought him from Cosmo Canyon to study some extra-terrestrial rock in the area. He was the one who taught me how to shoot,” she reminisced.

I smiled, “that’s nice.”

“What about you, Helena? Any guys in your life?” She asked, suggestively poking me in the ribs.

“Don’t do that. Please.” I watched as she clipped the gun to her belt.

“Why not?” She joked.

“Because you know jack shit, Kathe,” I retorted. She stopped dead in her tracks, looking me up and down, trying to detect irony in my demeanor if not my tone. But she couldn’t find it. I was dead serious. My heart racing, I could feel the anger subside and was hastily replaced by guilt. It was so like me: to blow and regret quickly flooding in. “I’m sorry. I’m just really tired and cranky.”

“I get it,” she murmured, “no need to apologize.”

“I would have never expected you to have a gun,” I persisted, not wanting to dwell too much on the outburst. 

“I need to protect you anyway I can.” Her hand snuck it’s way into my pocket, pulling out an orb. “You’ll need to help me, you know.”

I nodded, taking the Materia back into my hand, “I know.”

“Well,” Jofrey hollered over the gathered clamour, “found you something!” We hadn’t even noticed him approaching us with the amount of people that were gathered around the vendors. But there he was, a warm hand tapping my shoulder, and the other with a present.  

“Thanks.” I took the small bangle, fitting the Materia inin their respective slots and then put it on my wrist. The thick metal engulfed my wrist and jangled around as I twisted my hand from side to side. My wrist seemed so fragile and small. There was no way any of this was going to work. I had no way of using of these Materia. I was simply fooling myself.

“It looks good,” Kathe insisted, hearing my lack of enthusiasm.

“Maybe we should head back,” Jofrey suggested before leading the way back to the hotel. “We should think about where to go next.”

Kathe was audibly disgruntled. She knew we had to accept Jofrey into our little circle of trust, but something was ticking her off. Perhaps she was privy to something that I was blind to. Maybe I needed to take Kathe’s heed and be more cautious around this man. But there were worse things on my list. Like the Shin Ra.

As we approached the hotel, we found at least fifteen Shin Ra troops and maybe another five SOLDIERs at the port. I felt like jumping out of my skin. I worriedly looked to Kathe who confidently approached the throng of people around the port, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on. A line was being made of pilots and boat owners who were trying to escape the sudden inquisition. Kathe went to the end of the line, asking around while Jofrey was speaking with the bikini woman from yesterday. I quietly stood alone, watching Kathe swinging over side to side. I couldn't hear what the woman was saying over the commotion, only bits and pieces of what Jofrey was saying, but it sounded flirtatious.

Kathe came back, a worried frown on her face and announced, "they're checking everyone's I.D.'s"

"You mean the I.D.'s you don't have," Jofrey joined the conversation with a snide comment.

I knew this I.D. situation was going to cause us an issue but it wasn't like we could waltz right back into Midgar, where every sort of depravity seemed to exist and the depravity we needed to work for us existed in abundance.

"Why are they keeping people from exiting Costa del Sol?" I asked.

Jofrey shrugged. "Apparently they're looking for an important dignitary."

"That's a big word," Kathe snipped.

Jofrey chuckled, despite the clear insult. I was starting to get the feeling that he was much more easygoing than either of us which played in my favor considerably. Kathe was not the warmest individual, and he was getting increasingly better at ignoring Kathe's tough outer shell and accepting that she had a soft, gooey center, somewhere. But this was perhaps just wishful thinking. "Well it's what she said," pointing to the bikini babe. "A Hobo? Hodo? Hoko?"

"Hojo," Kathe corrected.

"Right. Apparently he defected and is in Costa del Sol. Somewhere."

A sudden anxiety washed over me. Hojo was here? How did he get here so fast? Did Reeve tell him something? No, he hated the man. Did it matter? I grabbed Kathe and turned her around. "We need to leave the fucking boat."

"What?" She asked in complete confusion, a slight fluster hanging in her brow.

"We can't stay here, we need to leave… Now!"

Kathe suddenly seemed to understand. She knew that Hojo would cause a problem for us. Even with our disguises, we would eventually become suspects due to our lack of I.D.’s. She knew that we would be separated permanently if he managed to get between us once more. She turned to Jofrey who looked at us, a little perturbed that we were sharing secrets amongst each other again. Kathe nodded to me, accepting our situation, whatever that may be.

"Jofrey, we need to leave the boat behind," I peeped.

Jofrey pulled the group aside. "Leave the boat?" He looked around. "You're hoping we can go by foot?"

"The only chance we have is to leave out by the grasslands. There's no one there." I guessed they didn't want to waste their energy looking for a man that had no way of escaping Costa del Sol by foot.

“You’re fucking crazy,” he muttered.

“I may be,” I confirmed his increasing suspicion. “But we can’t stay around here and get risk getting caught. All of us.”

Jofrey agreed solemnly, blowing a single kiss to the boat that drove us this far.

"Sorry, Jofrey," I apologized wholeheartedly.

"Meh," he sighed. "It wasn't my boat anyway, as you both know. I was so jealous when I found out they hired him instead of me to ride planes. So, this was pay back. I was just hoping to keep this little gem a while longer."

"You stole a friend's boat?" Kathe scoffed. "All because he got hired by Shin Ra to pilot some planes and you didn't."

I laughed, placing the key into the lock. Jofrey seemed like a simple man, I never would have taken him to by so petty. Even though Kathe seemed less than amused by his thievery, he gently explained that he would tell him about the incident eventually. The man wouldn't care if it meant that Jofrey was at the service of two beautiful women. Of course that didn't ease Kathe, not one bit. She packed louder, angrily fitting her clothes into her pack and tossing in potions as she went along.

We quickly packed and got out before check-out. Kathe went into bar to leave the key and Jofrey instructed me to stay by the door while he picked up a couple more Softs, seeing as we were officially going by foot. I sat down on the cobble road, propped up by the sandy wall. It was a warm day, like every other day I assumed and I was regretting that we were leaving. Although I could never imagine myself a permanent resident of Costa del Sol, I wanted to at the very least warm up to the ocean enough to swim in it. I feared the road ahead. The warm womb Costa del Sol enveloped me in was a welcomed change.

"Ready to go?" Kathe called out.. I snapped up and nodded, pushing myself to my feet. She looked around. "Where's Jofrey?"

I was about to explain that Jofrey was off to buy more Softs when he literally seemed to manifest out of nowhere. He quickly blurted that we needed to rush out before the Shin Ra caught up with him again and ask us for our I.D.'s. Apparently two Shin Ra SOLDIERs were tasked with checking people’s I.D.s and were working themselves in our direction. He managed to slip out of a group that was collectively being checked but that proved as an idiotic decision as the SOLDIERs noticed what had occurred. He called out to us as we jogged out of Costa del Sol, slipping in and out of gatherings of people to try and blend. Sooner than later we managed to get out without a further incident.

From the shores of Costa del Sol, the grasslands were totally different. It reminded me kind of like home. I searched around and found long tall grass swaying hard against the air current, its silver side flickering in the sunlight. I imagined my home amidst the warm aroma of grass, a small two-storey home standing beside a modest barn.

Jofrey voiced his concern that we wouldn't make it far enough, Kathe agreed. I knew they were referring to me. I was lagging behind, out of breath and anxiously looking over my shoulder. Jofrey pointed out into the distance, a mountain range. Within its cavernous sides, laid a rather safe path to Corel.

“What would Corel do for us that staying in a monster-infested hole would?” Kathe asked.

Jofrey made a point that no one would bother going into Corel, it was a ghost town after the anti-Shin Ra forces were put down. It was now reduced as a gateway of getting into Gold Saucer. Kathe smiled quickly before Jofrey turned around. It was too late, he had seen her enthusiasm. As Kathe pretended to be a tough-ass, she was a kid at heart. Her father had brought her to Gold Saucer at least twice. She loved thrills and lights flashing her blind or into a deep seizure. So did Jofrey apparently, he listed the plan for the week that we would spend there. He didn't accept anything less than a week of excitement and relaxation, using his grief over his boat as an excuse. And the likelihood that someone would kill us at Gold Saucer was really unlikely, because it was the happiest place on Gaia.

"What makes you think they want us dead?" I questioned his worrisome reasoning, the mountain suddenly in reach.

He just elbowed Kathe in a joking fashion, which didn't make her any more jovial. It was amazing that we didn't meet any monster on the way to the path, but the seemingly peaceful pathway to Corel was truly riddled with creatures I had never seen before. I found out Jofrey fought very well with a short sword. I stayed in the back, casting the occasional restorative spell. Jofrey would holler for me to use the fire Materia but there was no way. I just couldn't bring myself to even put it into the bangle. I knew it would have been beneficial but every time I reached into my pocket to get it, after Jofrey cried out for a spell, I fumbled and casted a simple cure spell instead. Kathe took my place. She was quite steady as a shot, knocking aggressive birds down between their eyes. Jofrey was quite impressed too.

"What is it you do?" Kathe looked to Jofrey.

"Pardon?"

"Well, we hired you as a bodyguard but I'm doing all the work." Kathe was pleased. She felt empowered, it was noticeable in her stance. So, it was clear that Jofrey wanted to let her open her wings and see how far she could fly on her own. He was clearly comforted by her ability.

Silently I felt my fire Materia twitch uneasily. I knew by his sideways glances that Jofrey was somewhat disappointed I did not step up to the plate, despite the fact he pushed me in the background time and time again. I couldn't. I never could. No matter how many times they would hit me or spew their hateful words, I froze and would watch as if from afar, detached. There was something freeing in the depersonalization of my abuse, though it seemed I never relearned how to be a participant in my life again. Even now, as my life was literally in danger, I found myself slipping into what I was most comfortable with: blissful ignorance.

We passed through the mountain and on the outskirt of a Mako reactor. North Corel was near, Jofrey assured. I knew he had to be right. I heard the stories of how Mako reactors appeared and how certain towns and villages who opposed. Even with the slightest of disapproval by attempting to form a union, they were all crushed without so much as a whimper. It amazed me how no one stood up to voice their concern within Shin Ra… but then again, I worked for Shin Ra for years, disapproved of their methods and still said nothing. So did Reeve. I rather play dead then fight against a conglomerate like Shin Ra. And I assumed that Reeve had the same sentiments. A lot of people had the same sentiments.

North Corel appeared past a string bridge. It was sullen. Even the people were sullen. It was a dust bowl; nothing more than a mixing pot of old metal, dirt and grief. I knew something happened here. So did Kathe and Jofrey, as they said nothing to each other but angered grunts. An elderly man approached Jofrey questioning his intentions.

"Just going through. To Gold Saucer." He answered, not wanting to upset the man who was clearly disturbed with the introduction of new faces.

"Sorry kiddies," the elderly man said. "Just some folk ran through here like a tornado. Take your time." And with that, he hobbled to his tent.

We didn't pry. It wasn't our place.

We went to the cable car station where the man apologetically refused our money. We couldn't have picked a worse time to want to go to Gold Saucer, apparently. The cable cars only went through a series of maintenance cleanings and changing of old parts once a month. And it would take the entire evening before she was ready to run again. Jofrey crumpled the money and handed it back to me, swearing under his breath.

"Well it's not that bad," he said through clenched teeth. "We need to get some supplies, even take a rest before we head in. I want to try my hand at the Battle Arena and I'm not about to waste good Gil on Gold Saucer potions."

Kathe's interest peaked at the mention of the Battle Arena. She used to tell me stories of our father gambling away good money and always winning it two-fold. She wanted to see if she had her father's luck in her. I suggested looking into some better armor and handed her a good sum of cash. She protested but I told her that any winnings she brought in, half would be split with me. She happily agreed.

We walked back into North Corel, the stench seemingly stronger now but we decided to cut our losses and call it a night. We went up to the inn, ignoring the drunk mumbling to himself. The innkeeper instructed us of the fee for the night for the good fortune of using his facility. It was a mess but it had clean beds, to which I was thankful. I was honestly hoping to catch some sleep for once. Kathe paid the man, not wanting to complain and settled into bed. Jofrey explained that he would go and ask around for wares before heading into Gold Saucer. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to talk with Kathe. I thought we both enjoyed our time on Jofrey’s boat. But she was already long gone by the time I mustered the courage to utter anything, snoring a storm. I assumed it was a sign: it just wasn’t the time. And I needed to sleep.

I found myself in dream. Something… comforting. I was wearing my old garbs: a lab coat, pressed but stained around the cuffs. I was standing in one of the numerous hallways populating the Shin Ra Headquarter. But I found myself asking why I was there and not somewhere else? Something was deeply amiss and I felt my mind tense at the very mention. I turned to return back to my desk, where I was certain I would find the answers I was looking for and found the entire hallway lit up in flames. I turned to run, praying I would find an exit nearby. But the heat, it was so unbearable. I could literally feel the flame lick at my wrists and singe my cheeks.

As I approached an incoming exit, I found a tall woman standing amongst a gathering of flames. It was something I had seen before, I assured myself, and decided it would have been best if I dove into the flames behind me rather than face her a second time.

“Mommy!” I screamed instinctively, “Mommy please!”

“Is this what you wanted, Helena?” She scathed, the words like a taunt whip around my skin.

I broke down to my knees. “I didn’t mean to,” I was reduced to nothing more than a blubbering mess, coughing out each word through my thick sobs. “Please mom, believe me! I didn’t want any of this! I want you to be here with me.”

“Don’t!” She sneered, “I regret it, Helena. I regret it all.”

“No,” I sobbed.

“You were only meant to destroy, Helena.”

“No!” I cried, waking myself from yet another nightmare.

I wasn’t prepared to comfort myself, so I decided instead to find an escape. I looked around to find Jofrey sleeping in his bed and Kathe was elsewhere. I felt compelled to seek her out. I slipped on my boats and walked out into the fresh night air, the cool mountainous air elevating my spirits some. There stood Kathe on the precipice of the ledge looking down to the gathering of tents below. She was looking up to the cluster of stars above, a thread of smoke twirling from her mouth.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I barked.

She turned around, surprised that I was awake. She smiled, “no, but I thought it would be as good as time as any to start.” She handed me the lit cigarette, “want some?” I took the offer. Taking a much overdue puff.

“Can’t sleep?” I asked.

“Nope. Neither can you?” I shook my head, “again?”

“I’ve been having some pretty weird dreams. Must be the medication,” I dismissed.

She looked down, nodding apprehensively. Neither of us wanted to speak. It seemed as though my time with Hojo was a taboo subject. I wasn’t quite certain how I felt about it yet and so decided to remain silent. I knew it was imprudent that I was hiding things from her. Certainly things that would come to haunt us one day. I knew I had to tell her about the rumours.

“Kathe, listen, I have something to tell you,” I started.

“Hold on Helena. I need to say something first; get it off my chest. I’m sorry Helena, but I’ve been holding this in for a while now,” she interrupted. “I want to say that I’m sorry.”

“Kathe, stop. I really don’t want to hear it. You fucking left me with Shin Ra for twenty years to fend for myself!” I retorted. She seemed hurt. Although my intension, seeing her like that, after opening herself to me, made me feel all shades of guilty. I wanted to at least hear her out. “I’m sorry Kathe, I didn’t mean it.”

“No, you’re right, Helena. You’re absolutely right. About everything. You’re right in being angry. You’re right in blaming me. I was wrong. I did you wrong. There’s nothing I can do that will make up for it, I know that now. But I hope that you can stay here, with me, while I try.” She held her hand up to her face, hiding an onslaught of tears. “When I got that letter, saying you needed my help, I wanted nothing more than to forget I ever got it. But I never threw it out. And when I heard about Shin Ra being assassinated, all I could think about was you. I knew I had to put everything aside. I knew I had to, for once, be the big sister you needed. The one you deserved. I’m sorry I wasn’t that sister.”

“Kathe,” I sniffed, “we’ve all done things we’ve regretted. I can’t say I’m not one of them. I’m not going to lie and tell you that everything’s alright.”

“I’ll take it,” she chimed, pulling me into a side hug, “I’ll take it all.” We stood there for a moment, enjoying each other’s warmth, chasing away the evening cold.

She finally asked, “what were you saying before?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, don’t worry. I’ll tell you another tiem.” I wasn’t about to waste my time, when time wasn’t exactly a luxury item in these parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took sooo long! I've been in the process of moving and finish up midterms. Now I'm moved into my comfy apartment and I failed only one of my midterms. Awesome.


	6. Chapter Five: Paradise Comes at a Price that I am not Prepared to Pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group enjoys the sights at Gold Saucer. Things go down. Helena dreams of an old friend.
> 
> Warning: Violence (i.e.: guy on girl beating) and gore (guy on beast).
> 
> Edit: Keystone bit changed.

**Chapter Five**

**Paradise Comes at a Price that I am not Prepared to Pay**

_“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”_

\--Karl Popper

We rode the cable car over to Gold Saucer after I had washed my face clean of the sweat that gathered from the night before. We were anxious to get into Gold Saucer and its promise of security; some more so than others. I failed to see its allure. It was a place like any other and I felt like we were risking ourselves yet again. But the view of Gold Saucer from the car was nonetheless enchanting. It was my first time at the famed Gold Saucer; the fame mostly gathered from Kathe's stories as a child. As soon as we sat down, she went on a ramble of how she wanted to go on every ride, like she did as a child with her father and even wanted to try her hand at Battle Square. This threw Jofrey into a frenzy, his eyes glimmering with the prospect of easy cash. I sat back, studying the two  _children_  feed off each other, until I noticed fireworks in the distance. The boom had attracted my eyes to the window, despite my incredible fear of the heights, the fireworks were the things that kept me grounded in the moment. This moment out of all possible moments.

"Beautiful, right?" Jofrey whispered, leaning in from his seat across me, looking out to the firework display.

"Mmph," I grumbled in agreement. We locked gazes for a moment. It was peaceful looking at his big brown eyes. How natural they seemed. They accepted things in life -more than what needed to be accepted. He was kind, though people thought of him as a goof, a flake and a loser. But I saw what resembled a human being, something I felt I never saw before. Someone willing to fight despite the fact that he ought not to. And this frightened me.

Kathe leaned in. Uncertain of herself, she spoke in a whisper, "I wanted to make some new memories. It’s become clear from last night that we need some.”

I turned over to face her. She was absorbed in how I beheld her gift, the chance at forming memories over those I wanted to leave behind. After some time of being silent again, she continued, "I know I missed a lot of your life. I don't want to waste more of it by talking about the past and I know you don't want to drain yourself by dredging up old wounds. But having you here now has made me realize I have no memories of you."

A sudden wave of emotion washed over me. Anger, pain, sadness and… fear… confused into a singularity and welled itself inside me but not a sound was emitted. Jofrey looked over and smiled. I took my free hand and brushed him away. Kathe tightened her grasp on the other hand.

I couldn't hide the pain it caused me to lose the only person in my life. My mother was now long dead. My father had left one night, like every night before, but was not found passed out in his bed the morning after. When I came home from school one day, Kathe too had left. The first time I saw her in over seventeen years and she was a mess with a disheveled bun and a breathlessness that proved to me that she hadn't change over those many years. I so wanted her to be different, someone who had weathered over the years, someone who I hoped to place trust in. Someone who would have come when I asked her to. But she was there, unchanged and still my sister.

“They’ll be plenty of time to make memories,” I promised. I felt horrible as each word slipped out, unguarded.

We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. I wondered, did she have anything more she wanted to say to me? Did she want to apologize? Did she regret what she did? Did she think of me at all over those twenty-odd years, while she lived her life in comfort and I was left at Shin Ra HQ to fend for myself? I felt like asking myself these questions got me nowhere. I seemed to be the only reeling about, scrambling to find a reason, an answer. Now we were here, miles away from our respective homes and we needed each other. We needed to let go of some things; things that did not belong in an adult conversation. She had good intensions, I reminded myself. She did grab my hand, looked me in the eyes and took me away from Midgar without a care in mind. We were here now. And it was simply thanks to her willingness to abandon her guilty conscience and her will to start anew.

I had to give her credit, she did take me where she promised to take me: far away from Midgar. She kept me safe. She kept me sound. And she promised never to bring up the past. She even tried to catch up on my life and we shared in our awkwardness. She wanted badly to be forgiven. I knew that but something nagged at me to hold onto my bitterness for fear of what would happen without its comforting hold. I had to let go for my sake, I couldn’t possibly survive with its poison in my veins. And she seemed so burdened.

The Gondola stopped, shaking the contents inside. We left our moment in the past, brushed off the emotion and stepped out into the cavalcade of music and lights. We decided that it was best to get a room and leave our stuff to move onto more exciting things. Which was just what we did when we arrived, after paying our expensive tickets – another expense to add to the budget. Surprisingly enough the sight of the bed did not make me want to embrace its warmth. I had a well laid out plan to avoid beds for the next eternity. Jofrey was increasingly getting antsy about the Battle Square arena and pushed us out of the hotel. The prospect of extra cash he desperately needed, because, and I quote: "this trip is getting too fucking expensive." It was nice to think he thought of our excursion as a  _trip_.

We walked out of the hotel and down to the Battle Arena. Both Kathe and I were trailing behind. I grew anxious as she got closer and closer to me, and as Jofrey went further and further away. He seemed to be in his own little bubble, and Kathe and I in ours.  

“Are you alright?” She asked.

“Oh. Me? Yeah.”

She nodded pensively. “Didn’t mean to say anything out of line. I just feel like if I need to say something I should, you know?”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“Okay,” she affirmed. “I just want to make sure that I’m not stepping on toes either.”

“Listen Kathe,” I levelled with her, “there’s a lot to be answered for but if you feel like you can do that by saying your piece, then by all means, do it.”

She looked at me like I kicked her cat. I honestly didn’t understand where I went wrong. I tried to mull it over but nothing panned out. She smacked her lips and moved on, not wanting to press the matter any further. I thought it was for the best. Perhaps until I figured out what just happened.

Jofrey huffed impatiently as we met him at the top of the stairs. “I’m waiting, ladies. They’re taking sign-ups right now.” He looked over to Kathe, “I think you should sign up.”

“Really?” Kathe gasped.

“Yeah, you’ll do great,” he reassured. “Better chances of us winning that way,” he laughed.

They both registered, the girl at the front desk explain that it was one-at-a-time and that they would be called by name. The battles would begin later on that afternoon. Suddenly, I was anxious. I thought that Jofrey would be there to support her. She wasn't a seasoned fighter. I didn't want to alarm her or throw off her _game_. There was a greater chance now I would have to tend her wounds well into the morning. But she seemed so confident and bubbly. Jofrey seemed impressed with her so far. So, all in all, I said nothing to no one.

“Well,” she poked at Jofrey, “what should we do in the meantime?”

It was childish and seemed out of place, but she seemed to joyfully take in the sights, wondering if she could really spend so much as a whole week. I was going to entertain the notion until they mentioned a roller-coaster. Distraught, I shook my head all the way, looking at the death trap up and down. I smelt something that I assumed was death. Jofrey joined in her excitement, he had heard the rumours of its intense speed and that you had to shoot at full three-dimensional holograms. I did not share in the excitement. I was petrified of heights. There was absolutely no way they were getting me into something that went that high and only offered a metal bar as protection.

"Oh, c'mon Helena!" Kathe pushed. She never understood how I could be so cautious.

"Ah don't be so hard on her. My sister was pretty much the same about heights. Couldn't even stand on a chair," Jofrey added in defense.

This piqued my interest. We never really asked Jofrey about a family or his history as he never offered. But we supposed that he was exchanging small tidbits for large quantities of information on our end. We hardly had the chance to press further as the line moved up. There was a third seat to be filled and thankfully a young woman, whose friend did not want to join her on the ride, accepted to take the mandatory third seat.

I was left alone, watching the ride go into the tunnel without me. I could see the two biggest children I knew have their mutual giggle fest until they disappeared into the dark recess. I could feel my palms sweat as potential situations arose in my head. I never did enjoy heights, even as a child. But as I grew up, they seemed like a viable solution to a constantly arising problem. I had a small apartment up on the twenty-second floor for many years; the perfect height it seemed. When it was late at night and that thought, like a poisonous fog rolling in, would dull any sensible thought I found myself precariously leaning over the edge. It was foolish. I was foolish. And so I never told anyone. But I needed to find a solution: a rubber band around my wrist, so I could pluck away as the thoughts would creep in. Classical conditioning. I stood on the ledge, rubber band being plucked against my bruised wrist, until I became still inside. It was lonely standing there, night after night.

And it was lonely standing next to a group of people, each individual group concerned with the flashing lights around them. I found myself looking more at them than at my own surroundings; I couldn’t enjoy where I was: this little reprieve. Nor could I enjoy the company that Jofrey and Kathe offered as they jostled around to the Battle Arena. Kathe threw a lighthearted punch by Jofrey and Jofrey took it to his arm, making a comment about how poorly she fought. They laughed. I laughed. But in reality, I only laughed because I thought I had to. I couldn’t understand how they could enjoy themselves while Shin Ra was bearing down us like a three ton brick, squeezing down as we scurried, trying to avoid their overreaching grasp. And now that Hojo was on the loose, there wasn’t a night I could see in the near future that I would spend without an eye open.

We arrived to the Battle Arena. How? I wasn’t quite certain. The woman at the counter welcomed us and offered for either to go in. Jofrey decided to go first.  We joined him in the arena, in the safety of a balcony surrounding the arena floor. The air was thick with sweat and smoke from the previous fighters. We stood amongst a small crowd and watched intently as the first few beasts that stood in his way went embarrassingly easy. I screamed from the spectator booths that it could be a trick to lull fighters into a sense of false security.

Kathe laughed, “he can handle it.”

Jofrey raised his short sword for another round, knowing full well he was going to be pitted against harder and tougher monsters. They did come, harder and tougher. Some were swarms of monsters that would throw Jofrey around the battle ring and make him lose his focus. The shouting from the crowd did not help matters but somehow, he managed to slay them, one by one. Excitedly, the crowd cheered for his success but we cheered loudest. Even Kathe seemed red in the face with the forceful screams she was emitting.

Jofrey got to the last beast, his chest heavy, his fast plastered with sweat and his cropped hair sprinkled with blood. The cheers of the spectators settled as the great and fabled owner, Dio, walked on a podium amongst the spectators. They went literally nuts even before he uttered a word, but they knew it had to be good. Jofrey's ear perked up and so did ours, as Dio announced the coming of a new beast. The Behemoth. One from his prized and personal collections. A beast that has been entered into a hundred fights but none has slayed him. Would Jofrey be the one? We awaited, our fingers interlocked, as the beast stalked its way out of its cage. It roared and the crowd's silence erupted in a fervency, arms being thrown about, and shouts of various profanities heard from even the daintiest of women.

"I can't look!" I told Kathe, hiding my eyes as the Behemoth approached Jofrey.

Kathe hungrily took in the fight that was about to begin. "You're going to miss a good one, Helena," she insisted, a twinkle in her eye could be seen from in between my fingers.

The Behemoth howled in pain and I shot up. Jofrey hit him! Fresh blood strewn on the battle ring's brick floor. Kathe threw her hands in the air in victory, crying out profanities along with the other people. I watched as Jofrey shifted around the ring, his sword out, between the beast and the man. He was tired and the crowd knew it. He could run into the corner and call it quits, but that wasn't Jofrey. The Behemoth lunged with a paw, swiping him clear across the ring. A sudden hush went over the crowd. Kathe leaned over the railing, screaming a string of encouragements. I just hoped he would call it off and walk away while he still could.

But no, he stood up and the crowd threw their arms up in support. He twirled his short sword and then pointed it in our direction, as if to say, this swing was for us… for Kathe's encouragement. And with that act of bravado, he sliced at the beast's face, causing it to stagger backwards, exposing its neck. Jofrey saw his chance, and he stuck the blade into the furry neck, a spray of blood over his face. He lost his blade, he was defenseless. The Behemoth lunged forwarded, I screamed in fear but it laid forward, dead.

The crowd applauded and bawled with glory. He won. He was presented his money and gifts by Dio and three lovely ladies, and was ushered out of the stadium. We met him in the lounge. He was disgusting but this didn’t stop Kathe from picking him up, keeping him from smashing into the side of the wall.

"Best gift," he snickered, which was followed by Kathe punching him in the side. This made him double in pain.

“It’s clear you need some medical attention,” I said.

“Nonsense,” Kathe dismissed, “it’s more the Behemoth’s blood than yours.” She swiped at his face with the back of her hand, removing a big clot of blood.

“Fine,” I shrugged, watching as Kathe seemed to groom Jofrey. I wasn’t going to lie, it agitated me to see her so close to him.

“See,” she pointed to his face, “he looks better already.”

He smiled genuinely in response. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Oh fuck off,” she scolded, tossing him back into the wall.

He laughed, trying to stand on his own two feet. He was unsteady but managed. It was nothing short of a miracle, to be honest. I never would have assumed that he would have bested a Behemoth. I felt like I finally did something right, for a change, in hiring him and I felt as though I should gloat to Kathe when I had the chance.

“You know, I’m impressed,” I peeped, but nothing seemed to get through the chatter. They were talking about my sister’s strategy and every so often he would give her a boost of confidence. That’s when I just about had it.

“I’m just exhausted,” I called out as I turned to flee.

“What?” Kathe barked. “And what about my turn? I need someone to cheer me on.”

“You have Jofrey, don’t you?” I mumbled. “I just need to lay down. I can’t be running around like the rest of you.”

She was about to protest but the front desk called her name. Jofrey pushed her forward but not before shaking his head in disappointment. Well he had no right. Nor did he have any real idea of what was going on. I felt like I needed to explain myself but it was already too late. The damage was done. So, I turned on my heel, walking back to the tubes. I thought it was best if I rested anyway. It was clear that if I couldn’t enjoy myself in the happiest place on Gaia I may as well just crawl into the safety of a blanket cocoon and pray that it was all just a bad dream.

I walked up to the hotel; lights again flashing in my face, when I heard a familiar voice. "Helena?" I said nothing, half refusing to turn around for fear of what would be hiding behind me. "C'mon, it's Reno! And Rude's here too. Can't believe it's been five years, yo."

I kept walking down the quiet lounge until he leaned in to grab my arm. It startled me enough for me to scream out in a panic, trashing my arm around. I had half a brain to exclaim that I had no idea what he wanted with me, which caused the clerk at the front desk, Mr. Hangman, to rise up in disgust.

“Get off her, you fucking perv!” He cried out before reaching down to his telephone to call security. I raised my arm up, shaking my head nervously as I tried to make my getaway as incident-free as possible.

Reno unlatched his hand from my arm before turning to Rude. Reno looked quizzically to Rude who returned the look with a blanked stare. “No need to freak out, Helena.”

“How did you…?”

“It’ll take more than a haircut and some contacts to fool me. I’ve seen it all.”

I snapped my tongue in dismay. “What the hell do you want, then? Gonna take me in?”

“What?” He was candid in his reaction; mostly disgusted. “I don’t do Hojo’s dirty laundry. Anyway, Hojo’s not working for Shin Ra anymore. But I’m sure Reeve already told you that.”

“Don’t even trust your own Board Members anymore that you have to follow them around?”

“Ever since the president was killed, we keep a watchful eye on our employees. Considering what happens every time we forget to put them back on their leash.”

“You mean Hojo.”

“I mean Sephiroth,” he smiled, “and the other higher ranking SOLDIERs who couldn’t handle it.”

I shivered. There was something awfully distasteful in the way he mentioned Genesis and Angeal, like he was desecrating their very existence. He was a TURK, a man who had seen and done things that you simply wouldn’t discuss at a dinner table; but that meant that they were a certain breed of loyal that you couldn’t possibly fathom. I felt like, no matter how Angeal tried and no matter how Angeal would scorn the TURKs, they would be head and shoulders above him in loyalty. 

“So, what do you want, Reno? You don’t want to take me back but here you are.” I had to trust them to some sort of a degree. The TURKs had a special kind of distain for the freak scientist, his workings and what that meant for them. And if they could help it, they would refuse to do it. I had seen it done before. I hoped that Reno and I went back long enough that I could tell when he was lying. But what was most telling was the look in Rude’s face. He was a stone cold man but he would always look over to the side when something was amiss.

“Well I thought I could give you a present, you know. Some information about your favorite General.”

I scoffed. “Reeve told me about your little ghost story. How do you think that interests me in the slightest?”

He smiled. “You were calling him when they were taking you into the hospital. Granted, you were fucked up. But I have a feeling you wouldn’t call our Rude here.”

I blushed instinctively. “There’s no way on this green Gaia that I would do that.”

“It’s true,” Rude confirmed, adjusting his glasses.

“Whatever.” I shrugged.

“Do you want to hear it or not?” Reno rebuffed. “Okay. You need to trust me when I say that Sephiroth is still alive.”

“Stop Reno.”

“Believe me or not, it’s true. I know why you wouldn’t believe me. But it’ll be your loss. That man killed Shinra and he’s moving around Gaia like some sort of—.”

“Ghost,” I interjected.

“Yeah. He was last seen heading to the Temple of the Ancients.”

“Why?” I had heard of the Temple. It was a historian’s dream. I had many of Gast’s papers on the subject. Apparently it was massive but it didn’t allow entry to those who sought it. “He can’t even get in. Not without the Keystone.”

“Some fuckers have been following him with the Keystone. The owner, Dio, had it.”

“You’re joking me. What the hell does he want to do in the Temple? I doubt he’s there to excavate the site.”

“Here,” Reno handed me a thick file, “I suggest you read it. It’ll get you in the loop.”

I took the file bound with a thick red band, keeping the papers from tumbling out. “Why are you doing this?”

“Consider this repaying a debt. I know what Hojo did to you and I regret what I did.”

I looked to Rude, who looked me up and down with his trademark glare. “Sorry,” I apologized half-heartedly. He shouldn’t have had approached me so closely with a razor blade in my hands. He nodded solemnly in response. “So then, that’s that?”

Reno shrugged his shoulders, his disheveled appearance looking all the more disheveled. “I recommend that you stay out of our way. If you stay out of ours, we’ll stay out of yours.”

“Huh,” I snickered, “never thought I would on the receiving end of some TURK charity.”

“And if you ever do meet up with our dear General, don’t hang around to see what he has to say. That man… he’s not who you think he is.” He threw his arm up to Rude’s chest, tapping it lightly. Rude understood and they both walked down the lobby to the front door. Neither of them turned back.

I looked to the file. Its lofty size foretold a long night of reading. I felt it was inappropriate to take such a gift, especially considering who gifted it to me. But I was ready to finally get answers. Something had been plaguing me since Costa del Sol and it was silently nagging at the very periphery of my mind. There was a deep seated hope that I was not alone by choice but rather that they were all dead, and I was simply left aside as a consequence of their deaths. However, Reeve wouldn’t lie to me. There was a very real possibility that he was a man gone mad and that I needed to acquaint myself with this new reality. I feared that would be the case. And so I didn’t want to open the file.

I walked up to our room. I opened one single light as if trying to peer at the file’s cover in secrecy. I plopped myself on the closest bed, holding the file on my lap. I wasn’t ready to open it. So I looked at the plain cover. It had a “confidential” stamp, in bold red letters, spelt out across the vanilla cardboard. I grew accustomed to its mark after seeing it on countless files exchanged in the Science and Research Department. I felt as though this time were different. I was no longer working for Shin Ra and now I had my hands on some very compromising information. I shook off the feeling soon enough though. It was clearly a product of heavy indoctrination.

I flipped open the file to the first page. It was a file on the Temple of the Ancients. The general information page was written by Gast back when he was excavating the island almost forty-five years ago. There was little known about the area only that it spurred him to continue looking elsewhere for the information he sought, with his trusted companion Ifalna. But that was all data that could have been found anywhere. I had his published diary of his travels, the one that was banned from publication after he defected. However, it was the pages that followed that interested me greatly. There was one with my photo stapled to the corner. It was a hideously old photograph; one when I was a young orphan, just recently admitted to the Shin Ra labs. I was wearing a drably old tunic and was instructed to stand still by a white wall. It was also my I.D. photograph until I started school. I took the photograph and crumpled it in a tightly wound fist. I was certain no one would miss it.

I continued reading down the page. I winced reflexively at the scientific language used to describe child abuse. I quickly skimmed through the page looking for anything that pique my interest and turned to another page. It was there that I found a data set. I slowed down my pace. It was torturous, a practice in self-flagellation but there was something particular about why that data would be left in a file about the Temple of the Ancients, something Reno was warning me about. I wondered at what point one accepts clear wrongdoings. Who was I to say anything? I had done my fair share.

I was intent on exposing this mystery. What was my connection to the Temple? I deserved to know. There was a part of childhood, best left untouched that screamed for recognition. For years I had suppressed that memory just so that I could function with the high cognitive dissonance that occurred on a daily basis. They studied what seemed like and was an anomaly: an extensive tattoo on a young child’s back. I couldn’t understand why they would ask me to take off my shirt at all hours of the day, their cold dry hand poking at my glass-like skin. It was nothing exciting back home. My mother, I would tell them, had given it to me. That snapped up their attention. She was distantly related to a Cetran, they deduced. But when it came to light that my tattoo meant nothing to them and that my heritage was so distantly linked to the Cetrans that it meant nothing, I was left to the wayside. Now it appears as though that they simply lost leads rather than interest; being blocked from entering the Temple. It was surprising how I was somehow related to the Temple, and the treasure it held, through the markings I bore on my back. The ultimate black magic, the Black Materia…  

I reached up to my back. “He was trying to warn me,” I muttered to myself, “that I may be of interest.” 

The door slammed open. Through the minimum light illuminating the hall, Kathe’s face appeared blanched.

“I saw the TURKs,” she said, winded.

“I know,” I started. “I saw them too.”

“We need to get the fuck out of here!” She shrilled, kneeling down to one of our bags.

I raised my hand, stopping her. “They’re not interested in us. They were in the area and gave us some info.”

“What? What does that even mean?” Jofrey babbled, looking to both of us for answers he knew would leave him more in the dark than where he started.

“I saw the TURKs and they aren’t pursuing us, Kathe,” I insisted. “They warned me about Hojo,” I lied. “So long as we don’t step on his toes, I think we’re in the clear.”

“What does that even mean?!” Jofrey exclaimed, profusely aggravated.

“It means that we’re not who we say we are.” I explained.

“I gathered that much! Who the fuck do you think I am? An idiot? You think I didn’t smell something foul off of you two.”

“It’s none of your damned business,” Kathe shouted.

“None of my--! Are you kidding me? I went through hell protecting you two and you say it’s _none of my business_? You’re really something, Kathelyn.” I never heard him use her full name before. It was jarring.

“We’re scientists. Well, were.”

“Helena--!” Kathe grumbled through gritted teeth. It was more of a warning than anything. But we were caught and it meant nothing now to hide our less than gilded past.

“We were scientists working for the Shin Ra Corporation until they institutionalized me for, should I say: _going against their wishes_. It was Hojo that did it and it’s Hojo that we should be concerned about.”

“We? _We_?” He stammered. “No, there’s no _we_. You too are fucking nuts if you think you’re dragging me along for this ride.”

“You have to understand,” Kathe spoke up, “we wouldn’t have asked for your help if we didn’t need it.”

“No, it seems like you definitely need some help. And I wish you too the best of luck.”

He bent over to grab his pack and threw it over his shoulder. He turned half way, his eyes laden with disappointment, and looked at me one last time before turning to meet the door. I felt as though I should say something. It seemed as though he took our lies for granted and now he was paying the price. I wasn’t certain what he wanted to hear from me or, for that matter, what needed to be said in these circumstances. Should I tell him of how torturous my life was since my parents’ death? Should I explain to him how I managed to survive in Shin Ra by the skin of my teeth? Should I tell him of how I know I deserve to live a life without fear and regret? It was a shame, I thought to myself, just another person in and out of my life.

“You can’t leave!” Kathe blurted as he turned the door handle. At first I thought it wouldn’t work but somehow he stopped; it was just want he wanted to hear, I guess. “I can’t do this alone. You can’t leave us here! We need you. Helena needs you. I have no chance in hell of protecting her alone. She… she deserves to be protected for once in her life.”

His hand twisted the doorknob, pulling it ajar. He shot me one last glare; his brown eyes reflecting the one lone light in the bedroom. I knew he meant to say something and so did I. I honestly felt foolish for it all; I knew I shouldn’t have cared, not in the sense that I did. He was a kind man and I counted these kind men in my life as if they were rarities. Though, it was true, I used these men like shields. Genesis and Angeal shielded me from a whole host of situations, and I preyed on their kindness. Was Jofrey no different? I needed someone to protect me from a world I knew very little about, breaking up the emotional tension that arose between my sister and I. If I was just as interchangeable as the rest, then certainly another Jofrey would come along.

“Let him go, Kathe. We’ll find another.” 

She raised a hand in protest but he had already left. Kathe turned to me, a look of desperation in her eyes. I knew that she feared what would come ahead, and yet I felt fearless, for once. I had to remind myself how poorly this ended for us. It could have very well have been my keen eye for silver linings picking up on a faint glimmer. But this was bad. We had no means of traveling out of Gold Saucer. We had no means of protecting ourselves. And now we had a man that could easily run into Shin Ra’s arms and divulge our location for the fun of it. We needed to make the best of this situation. We needed to press forward. I had to trust that Jofrey wasn’t the type to hold grudges or work with Shin Ra simply for money’s sake.

Kathe sat next to me, exasperated. “We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” I was in complete agreement and I trusted her judgement; my life was in her hands.

“You should rest up. I’ll scout the area. Make sure the TURKs have gone.”

“I don’t think they’re around but if it makes you happy.”

“It does.” She slapped her hands on her lap, using the dispersal of energy to get herself up from the bed. “Keep the door locked. I’ll unlock it to get in. Try to sleep some.” She twirled a wayward lock around her long index finger and placed it behind my ear.

“I’ll try.”

She walked out, locking the door behind her. I decided it was best to take her advice and at least try and get some rest. I needed to be more coherent than usual. It displeased me a great deal to have to encounter my nightly enemy but some rest was better than none. So I turned down the sheets and flicked off my boots at the heel, throwing them somewhere at the foot of the bed. I climbed into the silky mess and pulled the chain to the lamp, extinguishing the last source of light in the room. I shut my eyes as I wound the covers tightly around my neck and kicked my feet down the bed; it was going to be a long night.

As the night rolled around and Kathe had not returned, I fell asleep. I would have been surprised if it weren’t for the fact that I was blissfully unaware of my current state. I found myself looking out a bay window, peering down a long field of blue-green grass. The sky was dark and murky. Large clouds casted long shadows on the endless fields, as some sunlight attempted to peer through. I was so captivated by the sight unfolding - a sight I had neglected for some time now – that I cared little about how I got there and even begun to forget what awaited me beyond those fields of grass bending to the will of the bellowing wind. But it was clear that I was dreaming. I would not be here if I wasn’t.

I leaned into the window sill; a burnt structure in the distance caught my eye. I tried to make out the shape of it but it was so disfigured by an unseen fire thand only planks of discarded wood remained. Somehow I recognized it, as if I had known it in its wholesome state. Something about the mangled building left me with a feeling of despair like a heavy black veil were draped over me.

“I think it might rain.”

I turned around and smiled. “Never thought I would see you here, Genesis.” Though I had little understanding of what here was or meant.

“I thought I should say hello.” He paused for a moment, smiling that devilish grin of his. “Hello, Helena.”

I walked up to him and sat on the quilted bed. There was a small glass figurine of a ballerina standing on the nightstand that I took in my hands. It was familiar.

“That’s nice,” he commented.

“Yes.” I handed him the delicate creature. “It’s a ballerina. I always wanted to become a ballerina. But, well, I don’t have the figure.”

“Who gave it to you?”

Was it something gifted to me? “I can’t remember anymore.”

He gently rolled it in his large yet soft hand. “You have a lot of these figurines here.” Suddenly as if a light were illuminated in the room, tiny little figurines twinkled into consciousness.

“Yes. Most of them are mine.”

“They’re all quite lovely, Helena.” He turned his attention back to me, “you look well.”

“So do you… are you happy?”

“Hmm? I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“I miss you, Genesis,” I blurted impatiently. “Why did you leave? You son of a bitch! You left me here alone! All alone…,”I grabbed hold of the blankets in a vice grip as tears welled up onto my precipice of my cheek bones. “Why does everyone have to leave?””

“You poor thing,” he soothed, tossing the figurine to the floor. The thin fragile piece of porcelain landed on the ground with a soft _tink_ before resting on the floor boards. “You think you deserve these people in your life after everything you’ve done? Helena, don’t be foolish. You’re a monster. What you’ve done behind Shin Ra’s closed doors makes you no different than the rest.”

“I only did what they asked me to do!”

“And you think that excuses you? Do you think that makes you more pure than Hollander? You must think so with the way you carry on.”

“No. No… Stop this, Genesis. Please.”

“Why? Look at what you’ve done. Look at everything you’ve created. Everything was for naught. They even locked you away like the madwoman you are.”

“Stop!” I cried.

I rushed to the floor, picking the figurine to the floor, profusely apologizing to its alabaster face. “I never meant for any of this to happen. You have to believe me. I only wanted to keep you close. It was a mistake. A poor, misguided attempt at trying to be what they wanted.” But when I did not hear a response, I turned to see that Genesis was not sitting on the bed. He was instead replaced with an imposter.

“Y…you.” He seemed so familiar and yet his eyes told of a more disturbing past.

“It must be tiring to cling to a life that wants nothing more than to see you crash and burn,” the imposter said, glaring eyes baring down on me. “Shame to see you groveling on the floor already; I was expecting to have to break you before I would have the pleasure.”

“Shut up!”

“Can’t seem to handle a bit of truth, Helena?” He smiled, a twisted smirk; he looked nothing like the man I once remembered. Only a twisted reminder of what once was, I suppose.

He stood from the bed as I quickly scuttled to one side of the room. I was uncertain of his current motifs and any movements on his end, quite literally, scared the hell out of me. He chuckled: a thick, menacing sound emanating from chest. I pushed myself from the ground, unsure of where to place myself. He wasn’t the man I knew; I could tell that clearly in the way he was standing, hovering over me but he seemed so much like him. Each strand of silk that curled behind his ear reminded me of a much simpler childhood, when a young girl would have his broad shoulders to lean on.

“Where… where did you go?” I asked finally, clutching the figurine to my chest for moral support. “I waited for you. For all of you. None of you came. I was all alone.”

“Yes,” his lips curled into a cruel leer, “always alone. Was it all worth it? Selling your soul to Shin Ra to find yourself desperate and alone?” He took a long stride forward, head slightly tilted to the side as if he could study me better at that angle. “You look ill.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Hmm,” he exhaled. “I wanted to see what became of you. Do you think that you can hide what you’ve done?” An outstretched hand pulled a wayward strand of blonde hair into his leathery palm.

I ripped my head away. “Go to hell. You have no right.”

His spine snapped upwards. “I have every right.”

“You killed Shinra, didn’t you?” I had to know. I needed to give some attention to the nagging questions that lingered in the back of my mind. I needed to know.

“Yes,” he sneered maliciously, adjusting the cuff of his gloves, “I did. I did what you could only dream of.”

“You’re sick,” I spat.

He seemed to take that as my particular sense of humour and laughed. “I don’t remember you to be so in denial.”

I took that as a challenge. “Why the Temple of the Ancients?”

“Because, Helena, that’s where I will find the answer to the Planet’s calls. I must become what this Planet needs.”

“And what’s that?”

“A god.”

I laughed, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. “You’re fucking crazy! You’re completely mad.”

It happened all too quickly. His hands reached up to my neck and picked me off my feet. He swung me over and we both landed on the bed, the mattress lifting up and landed back down hard. I released the figurine, desperately pounding at his chest for release. He moved his knee up onto the bed, cracking the figurine in half. With his full weight, he pushed into my neck, eyes locked into mine. 

“Fight me. Do it,” he dared. “You can’t because you know that it would be like fighting yourself. We’re too much alike, you and I.”

“I’m not like you,” I spat. “I’ll never be like you, Sephiroth.”

I reached up for his bare chest, scratching it with both hands. But nothing seemed to move him. If anything it made him earnestly press harder into my windpipe, cutting the little airflow that managed to trickle in. I tried twisting away but he was far too heavy.

“You see, Helena, look at how weak you are. Even if you wanted to, you have no way of fighting me. No one does. That’s why you won’t tell your sister. You’re frightened,” he leaned in, hot air wafting on my earlobe, as he whispered, “that they’ll leave you, just like the rest of them.”

Stricken by a fear deeper than I could comprehend, a fight manifested itself in me. I tore myself from side to side, slapping my hands across his face and chest until he had lost patience. I had only once felt such force in a grip before; one that could crack a jaw upward without a thought. I could hear my ears pop as the air was sucked out of my lungs. I could feel the tiny little cartilages in my cervical bones slip as he dug his fingertips inward. I cried out, a pathetic breath of a cry, before I closed my eyes.

Moving in one last time, I could feel his nose brushing into my hair. And he whispered something: “wake up.”

I woke with a horrid raspy whimper. Sweat had pooled onto the edge of my sweater; I forgot to take it off before going down for my rest. I was so hot and uncomfortable; I tore off my sweater and threw it over the side of the bed. That’s when I noticed Kathe was peacefully sleeping beside me. She was curled up into her pillow, her hair damp from a shower she must have taken before climbing in. I sat up and watched as her cheeks puffed up with every exhale. I wondered for how long we would be able to keep this up. Were we fools to assume so much of us? I wanted to wake her and have her tell me that everything was going to be alright –a need I had long suppressed –but I decided that she needed the sleep much more than I did.

The door lock clicked. Worriedly, I went for Kathe’s hand but noticed that it was Jofrey. “What the hell are you doing here?” I mumbled.

“I never gave in the extra key,” he revealed, “I don’t know why I did that.”

“If you want your money –.”

“No,” he said, “I’m not here for the money.”

He came up to the bed, dropping the bag he was carrying over his shoulder to the ground with a soft thud. He sat at the corner of my bed, uncertain of how to continue on. I think that was an issue for him; he was always a man who knew what to say, even if it shouldn’t be said. He was never speechless. He braved every conversation with a certain air of confidence that naturally attracted people to him. And to have betrayed such a man was certainly a testament to my credentials as both a conversationalist and a decent human being.

“I’m sorry.” I reached up to lightly touch his shoulder, only my index brushing up against the tip of his shoulder.

He shrugged dismissively. “I’ve been through worse, honestly. And even with all of that, I just couldn’t do it; I couldn’t leave.”

“Why?”

“I figure, anyone going to the lengths that you’re going to would have a decent reason. And I’m not an idiot. I know what Shin Ra does.”

“You don’t need to stay on my account.”

“No, I don’t,” he affirmed. “But I know I can’t live with myself, you know?”

I looked over to Kathe who was now muttering something into the pillow. It was clear that she was completely oblivious to the world. I wondered what she was dreaming this time. “I know Kathe will be grateful.”

“I know you love her.”

“I do,” I responded quizzically.

He smiled warmly. “I can tell something was off with you two from the moment we met. Call it intuition or call it experience.”

He paused, reaching down to his boots, untying them. I waited patiently, expecting him to go on. It was always the case: people tended to open up to me with little provocation, whether I wanted it or not. It became easy to do my job. You can’t possibly collect accurate psychological data without the tearing down of some defenses, and that came naturally to me. Jofrey seemed as though he was an inviting individual, but that only hid layers of him that he didn’t wish others to see.

“I have siblings back home; a brother and a sister. For the longest time it was tough, you know, after my mom died. And my dad just wasn’t the same anymore. I idolized my brother. He was my hero. He went off to Wutai in the first batch. But, uh, never came back.”

“Did he…?”

“Die? No. He went MIA. I was working on the Junon docks in the navy when it happened. I lost everything.” He reached down for his boot and struggled for a moment before turning up triumphant. He looked back to me, “I hated him for everything he did to us. I still hate him. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him.”  

“Understandable.”

“But there’s a difference between Kathe and my brother.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“He’s gods knows where, doing whatever the fuck he very well pleases.  He doesn’t give a shit about what our family had to go through. But Kathe… Well, at least, she’s here, trying. I think that must count for something.” 

I nodded. “You’re right. You’re completely right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hope you guise enjoyed it! I figure we'll be seeing more of Sephiroth from this point on.


	7. Chapter 6: The light that Fueled our Fire then has Burned a Hole Between us so

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Helena is desperately trying to piece together a life she never had with the help of her estranged sister, Kathelyn. After escaping from a Shin Ra facility, Helena and Kathelyn must employ the aid of an unlikely unemployed bodyguard, Jofrey. Little do they know that one of Helena's most guarded secrets will come to haunt her and something far worse than Shin Ra will threaten her last chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some potty-mouths about and violence towards the end

**Chapter Six  
** **The light that Fueled our Fire then has Burned a Hole Between us so** **  
**

_“Dies irae, dies illa  
Solvet saeclum in favilla…_

_Judex ergo cum sedebit,_  
quidquid latet, apparebit,  
nil inultum remanebit.”

_“Day of wrath, day of anger  
will dissolve the world in ashes…_

_When the judge takes his place,_  
what is hidden will be revealed,  
nothing will remain unavenged.”

\--Mozart’s Requiem

“Did you hear me, Helena?”

My head, resting on its perch, swiveled over in a display of disinterest. I honestly hadn’t meant to be so dissociated from the conversation but my mind was clearly wandering elsewhere despite my attempts at reigning it back in. “Huh?” I responded, hoping she would give me the short version.

“I think we should stay in the area for now. Jofrey seems to think so too. I think we need to rest up and gather more intel before we head out.”

“Sure,” I affirmed the solidity of her plan, swiveling back into position.

I was staring at the lonely clock mounted on the wall. It told of how the time was passing and how still I was despite of this. It was already almost noon. A creeping sense of apprehension seeped in as I watched in horror; time seemed to escape me and I hadn’t found a way to tell them. I knew I had to explain to them what was hiding underneath my bed.

“Everything okay, princess?” Kathe asked, a hand brushing the unruly mess piled on the top of my head.

I shrugged her off. “A little pissy today?” She sighed.

“No,” I countered aggressively, more than I intended.

Though I was certain she was right. I was in a fool mood; stress always put me in a fool mood. Reading those documents presented me with a reality I was not prepared to face: somewhere a man I once knew was on a murderous rampage and I seemed to be in his line of sight. The past I once tried so hard to outrun was now catching up with me in a rather violent way. After Jofrey had come in last night, I laid awake, watching the shadows gather and retreat with each simulated lightning strike, totally engulfed by an anxious heat that rose in my stomach. I had to tell them, I had to tell them something much more terrifying lay in the wake of Shin Ra’s destructive force. He was perfectly crafted into, not a man, but something far greater and now as time applied its force he was somewhat of a monster, something I could not recognize. I had to tell them what I saw in that folder but something held me back from spewing whatever weld up inside. 

“Sorry,” I grumbled as my palm, supporting my tightly wound jaw, fell down onto the table.

Kathe’s ears pricked up and she smiled. “I think I should go and get some breakfast, yeah? Before you get grumpier.”

“Sounds good,” Jofrey chimed in. “I need to figure out a way out of here, so whenever we do decide to leave, we’re prepared. I may know someone who can help. Dio… He might have a buggy we could probably use.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “I think it’s best that we don’t involve anyone else.”

“No worries. He’s an old friend and I need to cash in a favor. He’s the kind of guy who respects anonymity and doesn’t much care for Shin Ra. And how else do you expect to get out of here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly. Just let me handle it.”

Jofrey slipped through the door, locking the door behind him. Kathe grabbed her sweater as I studied her from the corner of my eye.

“You sure everything’s okay?” She asked.

I wasn’t sure. I was diligently working at forgetting what it was like to sleep on a one inch mattress, in the dark, with just one lonely light in the hallway flickering as I wondered what I had done to merit this. I didn’t want to remember what it was like to be fed to the ravenous wolves while my calls were being left unanswered. But it was as Jofrey had said: she was here and that was all I could really ask of her at this point. I couldn’t erase what was already done.

“What do you mean? Other than having the scare of my life last night? Thankfully the TURKs don’t give a shit but it just proves we’re sitting targets.”

“I guess. Sometimes I forget how fucked up all this really is.”

“Well, I don’t.”

A hand came up to her hip before she realized how confrontational her stance seemed. “You forget that we’re here Helena, we’re here to help.”

“I know.”

“I’m scared you’re not telling me something,” she said.

“No,” I replied, with a hint of annoyance in my voice.

She shrugged off her warranted suspicion. “Fine. I’m just going to get some money and I’ll get us some food.”

She went for her bed but got confused and ended up in my bed instead. She bent down to reach her backpack when she found a vanilla folder hushed away on the dusty floor. I came to snatch the coveted secret but she avoided my grab.

“What the hell is this, Helena?”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is.” I came to reach for it again but she was far too tall and quick for me.

She turned it over, as I had half a mind to at least turn it over but not enough of a mind to find a better hiding spot. She saw the Shin-Ra stamp and her face contorted in what I assumed was mixture of anger and fear.  

“It’s the fucking TURKs, isn’t it!” She shouted as she rummaged through the papers. “What the hell is all of this!”

“Can you please just let me explain, Kathe!”

Her hand plucked at a paper, quickly read the document. She continued as if a woman possessed, moving from one page to the next. She was transfixed. A tremble in the page as she moved onward.

“Stop reading it, Kathe, please. It won’t do anything for you.”

“Is this what they…,” she choked, collapsing into the pages. I could her a soft whimper as she drew the folder closer around her face.

“It’s done Kathe. You shouldn’t dwell too much on it.”

I reached for the package from her hands and tossed to the bed across from her, some of its contents tumbling out. I began explaining to her that the TURKs were heading to the Temple of the Ancients and were kind enough to pass on some information.

“You know something, don’t you? They told you something yesterday, didn’t they?” She put me on the wringer. “Why else would the TURKs bother to give you so much?”

“Reno and I go back, so I guess he thinks he owes me.” I reached for the folder but fumbled. “I’m so fucking scared Kathe.”

“You need to tell me right now, Helena. We can figure something out.”

“The TURKs were heading to the Temple of the Ancients,” I began.

 “The Temple of the Ancients?” I nodded in response. “That makes no sense. That place has been locked for time immemorial. There’s no way in. What kind of business would the TURKs have at the Temple?”

“They were following someone. They warned me about the Black Materia. According to the documents they left me, the Black Materia is housed there.”

“The Black Materia? You mean they think it’s real?”

“They have every reason to believe it’s real. Gast thought it existed.”

“That’s only because Ilfana told him some legend.” Kathe snapped her tongue behind her teeth. “There’s no way an all-powerful Materia can exist and there’s no real mention of it anywhere. Who the hell would follow some old wives tale all the way into the Temple of the Ancients, a temple that’s been sealed for centuries?”

 “I…,” I started, voice cracking under the pressure. I reached up to my throat; it suddenly felt parched and each words scratched its way out. “I can’t…”

Kathe leapt across the valley between the two beds and took me in her arms, jostling the folder further until its contents spilled onto the floor. She smoothed out my hair. “I can help you. You have to trust me.”

“Not from him,” I muttered into her shoulder, my body wrought with anxiety. “Sephiroth--,” I trailed off.

“Sephiroth? As in the GENERAL?” Kathe deduced. “He’s dead…”

“Shin Ra owns the media. They can say whatever they see fit,” I explained. “He’s alive. I know it.”

 “You’re next, aren’t you?” She held me at arm’s length. “That’s what the TURKs were trying to say.”

“He’ll find me, Kathe.”

 “There has to be a way,” Kathe’s voice rose as she peered at me from an angle. “He’s one man.”

I reached up for her hands and led them down. “It’s more complicated than that. We’re talking about a man who was built to fucking destroy. How can we expect to fight against someone like that?”

“I don’t know, we’ll have to make this work. It may not be the best strategy, but I think we can outrun him. We’ll have to be quick and never stay in one spot too long. We need to remain two, even three steps ahead of him. If the TURKs thinks Sephiroth is after the Black Materia, I say we believe them and avoid the lot of them.”

“I just can’t believe any of it.”

“I know. I heard he burned an entire village to the ground before going dark. He’s not the man you once knew.”

I looked at her, neither stunned nor indifferent to that loaded statement. “I know.”

“What now?”

“Cosmo Canyon,” Kathe blurted. “I know someone who might be able to give us some more information about the Temple and he may even be able to tell you something about your…,” she trailed off, uncertain of how to frame her words anymore.

“Cosmo Canyon sounds fine,” I agreed. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I became anxious the more I became still. I felt as though a target was being drawn on me if I weren’t careful and by standing still for too long, I was giving him the opportunity. “We’ll leave as soon as we can get our affairs in order, then.”

And then it dawned on me. “Jofrey…”

“I’ll talk with him. We’ll figure a way to get him on board. We’ll need all the manpower we can get if we’ll outrun both Shin Ra and Sephiroth.” There was something about the way she said his name, as though it were business as usual.

“Okay.” I felt helpless as I leaned myself against her, entrusted her to take over, certainly in such trying times.

“I just need to take a shower.” I wanted to forget for just one moment. I wanted to drown out the fleeting thoughts of panic.

She nodded. “I’ll stay. Stand watch.”

I walked into the washroom and closed the bathroom door behind me, Kathe viciously eyeing the stack of papers that fell to the ground. I took off my pants and placed them onto the toilet seat, noticing the stubble on my legs in the harsh light. Unzipping my sweater, I exposed my back to the low hanging mirror above the sink. A pang radiated up along my shoulder blades as I studied the massive tattoo that took up the majority of my back. I watched in disgust, fingertips tracing the border along the nape of my neck and then down to the length of my shoulder. It was hideous and vile. I was certain, it was better if it never existed.

Suddenly, tiny pinpricks replaced the pain and I reached over my sides, hand grating my ribcage furiously. I placed my attention back on the mirror, certain I was infested with bedbug. I walked up to the sink and adjusted myself so I sat inside the sink bowl to better see myself in the mirror. I looked over my shoulder expected tiny bug bites but instead found my tattoo, thick and puffy, had rose almost half an inch. I went up to touch the skin and found it rough and scaly. It was an allergic reaction, I suspected. I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed that I was pale, my lips blue. Strange, as I felt so hot. So hot…

I stumbled drunkenly into shower, driven by the need to have cool water running over my back and face. I used the side of the sink to steady myself as I climbed into the shower and turned the cold knob generously. A cry permeated the isolated tile room, echoing back into my ears tenfold. It burned, it burned so bad. I looked at the door, hoping Kathe had heard before I dropped to my knees and drooped over, head sliding across the slick white shower floor.

The knob creaked and the cool water stopped pouring. Feet sloshed around and finally settled by my head. I tried to acknowledge their presence but instead remained still, being in tremendous pain. Everything burned. I felt so hot, so unbearably hot. Their arms enveloped me in a cooling embrace. A hand came to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I allowed my head to rest into the depression of their shoulder, my cheek softly brushing at silken hair. I reached up, provoked by deep sentiments, and wrapped my arms around their neck. I felt so safe. And the burning subsided.

I opened one eye, surveying my surroundings. Silvery strands of hair wrapped themselves around my fingers. Suddenly both eyes shot open. I drew up my hands to push against his chest and I flew across the wet floor, the wind caught in my chest. A primal fear drove me to one corner of the room, knees drawn up to my chest and hands defensively displayed. He stood up and examined me. My heart echoed in my ears as I looked up into his blank stare.

“Don’t… Sephiroth, please.” I whimpered, like a child.

His eyelashes fluttered as his eyes tracked the tremble in my hands. He knelt down so that we were separated only by a thin layer of civility, by his accord, my head firmly pressed against the wall. “There’s no fight in you, is there? You would be willing to accept any fate handed to you.”

I moved closer against the wall, my arms wrapped across my sufficiently cooled body. Something caught his eyes as my arms moved across my chest. His hand cradled the pendant around my neck. A smirked played at the corner of his pale lips. Amused by what he found, he plucked the chain away from my neck. Insulted, I grabbed his wrist, forgetting how little he resembled the Sephiroth I once knew and how much he had become a threat. He studied me, eyes trailing down to my fingers wrapped around his wrist. He let go of the one treasure I had on Gaia and instead went for my chin, tilting my head up and back.   

“You cling to a memory in hopes that it would offer some comfort. You would rather live in a sham than face the world.” His deep emerald eyes reflected the eerie glow of the tungsten light above, his pupils narrowed as he focused onto the perspiration forming on my forehead. His gloved fingertips dug themselves into my cheeks, pressing against my molars. He applied continuous pressure until I yelp in pain, tasting blood. He released me with a smirk of satisfaction drawn on his lips. “But it will catch up with you sooner than later.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve come to tell you that I have the Black Materia in my possession. But you have no idea what that means, do you?”

“I know that you won’t get what you need. I can promise you that.”

He chuckled, “ _promise_? I see you don’t understand.” In one fluid movement, he approached me again, my head slamming against the wall in hopes of avoiding him. “So then I will tell you: I have the Black Materia, a heavily guarded secreted kept by the misguided Cetra for centuries. Do you really think you can stop me from getting what I need?”

“Go to hell.”

His hand grabbed my arm, throwing me to the ground. I squirmed around, pulling across the slick ground before he pinned me with his knee straight onto the crook of my back. I shrieked as I tried reaching over to grab silver strands of hair dangling overhead. He gingerly traced the raised markings, like a hot knife dragging across my skin.

“Kathe,” I screamed, “please!”

With his knee still lodged in the middle of my back, he plucked at the skin, tugging at the flesh until I went numb at the spine. “Look at how it calls out for the Black Materia. How does it feel?”

He released the taunt flesh and dove in again, this time twisting as he pulled. There was a sound that emanated from me, a sound I never would imagine could come from me. It came from a place I never thought I would visit again, a memory of a child prodded under a scientist’s glare. A flash of red flooded my vision before I shut my eyes and blotted out the tears that streamed my face, teetering on the edge of consciousness. I wanted him to stop - I believe I begged out loud – but he continued. I think he was punishing me, punishing me for all my shortcomings and wrongdoings. His gloved fingertips were cold against my raw skin as he plucked on last time at the base of my neck. He laughed as I sobbed ineffectively into the floor, banishing any sort of pride I managed to hide away for myself.

He then flipped me over onto my back, a hand pinning me at the neck. “You have no hopes in fighting me, Helena.”

I looked up in an effort to dodge his gaze but instead was lured by two green eyes. It was torturous to remind myself where I was and what I was really looking at. I wanted to believe that I was looking into the same eyes of a small boy, alone in the corner, reading a page from a book that was three times the size of his lap but his hand pressed against my windpipe long before I could search that memory further. I wanted to know at what point madness set its ravenous hold onto that small lonely child. I wanted to know for how long it sat inside him before it produced a monster just like the rest of them. Just like the rest of the monsters I spent too long crying after.

“You’re not a fucking god. You’re just a monster, like the rest of them. Genesis and Angeal… you’re no different.”

His hand clutched at the pendant and I woke from my stupor. He began twisting at the chain until the chain cut into my neck. “A monster? Perhaps. I suppose it takes one to know one.” Another few twists until I gagged.

“Sephiroth… please…” I hissed, fingers desperately trying to make a space between my neck and chain.

“I’m coming for you, Helena.”

His hand continued to twist at the chain until it wrung at his leather glove in return, the chain nearly bending under the pressure. I watched as the pendant glittered in his palm. I wanted to believe that I wouldn’t find my end here. I felt a strong urge to move, a final act of preservation. As his eyes fixated onto mine, gratuitous violence offering him no pleasure, I felt the urge to fight against a will much stronger than I could fathom. My hand of its own violation snapped up, my palm colliding into the base of his nose. Surprised, he stumbled backwards and off of me, giving me the chance to escape. I ran for the door, kicking it open. Before I could slip away, a hand tugged my hair back and I was thrown into a solid-like object. I felt the warmth of a body and a coolness of a breath, and I ceased to struggle, frozen in place.

“Useless device,” he sneered. “I feel no pity for you; you will never understand your place. You will see soon enough.” He pulled at my hair again, my chin cracking upward. “We’ll burn this world to ashes.”

_“You fool. You would burn this world to the ground if you could!”_

“No!” I tucked my elbow up and jabbed it directly into the meat of his abdomen. Seemingly winded, he let go and I ran for the door again.

Soaked hair flung across my face as I ran blind into the room. I swung at the front door, cold air pricking at my skin. I came face-to-face with Jofrey whose hands came up to my shoulder and blocked me from going forward.

“What the fuck is going on here!” Jofrey was stunned, eyeing me up and down.

Lost for words, I began to babble, pointing to the door. I was out of breath and fearful for my life. “We need to leave,” I managed, “we need to go!” I pulled at his shirt, gesturing to the front door.

“Hold on--.”

“He’s found me!” I screamed, making my way for the door with or without his consent.

“What the hell are you talking about?!” He called to me, trying to get his jacket around my shoulders.

I turned to the bathroom door, hearing footsteps echoing but there Kathe emerged, dabbing a bloodied towel to her nose. My heart dropped. Conflicting realities stood at the bathroom door.  

“I’m… I’m so sorry. I--.” My cheeks went hot. I wrapped my arms around my wet chest, drawing Jofrey’s jacket closed.

Jofrey led me to the bed. I was hesitant as they gathered in front of me. What had just occurred? I knew my mind rested somewhere in limbo now: the medication somewhat running its half-life and my body entering withdrawal. I had to convince myself that I was simply losing touch with reality but never had I felt something so real in my entire life; even reality seemed to pale in comparison.

“It’s okay,” Kathe assured. “You have a strong arm though.”

“What the hell happened?” Jofrey pushed for an answer.

“I don’t know what happened.” I blurted as Kathe sat beside me. I felt so foolish; I couldn’t even provide a sufficient explanation.

“She’s just tired and I scared her.” Kathe vouched for me.

I eased onto the bed, rubbing my face. Every time my eyes closed I feared when I opened them again, the world would no longer be the one I could recognize but some hellscape. I reached for Kathe’s hand and squeezed tight, she squeezed in response.

“Maybe we should let her rest,” Kathe whispered to Jofrey. He moved back to the front door again, muttered something incoherent to himself and slipped out.

I decided it was as good as time as any to change into something more appropriate. As I did, I felt Kathe’s eyes trailing the length of my back. I turned to catch her in the act but instead found that she was rummaging in her bags. She went through each item until she found one green orb and rolled it onto the unkempt bed.

“It’s for you,” she said. “I know you won’t use the Fire Materia, so I got this for you instead.”

“What is it?” I was weary, approaching the Materia with a deep seated concern.

“It’s an Ice Materia. I exchanged it at the Battle Arena. I thought it would be useful for you.”

“I… Thank you.” I picked it up and placed it next to my bangle set on the nightstand.

“It wasn’t your fault, you have to know that.”

“I can’t help but blame myself. I still dream about her sometimes. I just… I just sometimes wish she hadn’t come after me.”

“You can’t do that to yourself Helena. Mom went after you because she’s your mother. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“I was such an idiot… I caused that fire. I killed Mom.”

She approached me but surprisingly did not hold me. She did not impose herself but commanded that I look at her square in the face with a push her fingers underneath my jaw. “You didn’t kill anyone. It was an accident. And I’m sorry for ever thinking otherwise.” Was she trying to convince me? Or perhaps she was trying to console her own qualms with herself. She was sincere; she had to be if she was here.

“I don’t know what to do, Kathe.”

She smiled. “Me neither but we can do this. We have to.”

“I’m glad you’re here. Really.”

I took the first step, something I shied away from in the past, and gathered her in my arms. I was dwarfed by her towering figuring, her long arms wrapped around my neck. There was very little space between us as she coddled my head in her chest. I fondly remembered my mother rocking me back and forth by the window, her hand guiding my head to her beating heart. I felt most at home in her arms and when I had inadvertently taken that away, I was lost. I wanted so much for Kathe to offer herself as a substitute but I was too young to realize how damaged she had become.

 

“It only matters that you’re here now.”


End file.
